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1. Introduction
The quotes gathered in this collection come from many different sources – near-death experiencers (NDErs), philosophers, mystics, scientists, poets, spiritual teachers, and religious traditions from around the world. Yet despite their differences in culture, time period, and belief system, many of these voices express remarkably similar ideas about life, death, consciousness, love, and existence beyond the physical world. Taken together, these quotes reveal a larger picture – one suggesting that life may have far greater meaning than we normally realize, and that love, compassion, and inner growth may be the true purpose of existence.
2. Quotes about DEATH
“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without being wise. For it is to think that we know what we do not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a human being, yet people fear it as if they knew with certainty that it is the greatest of evils.” – Socrates
“Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark.” – Francis Bacon
“Death in itself is nothing. But we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.” – John Dryden
“We understand why children are afraid of darkness … but why are men afraid of light?” – Plato
“Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life … now … and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.” – Sogyal Rinpoche
“To not think of dying, is to not think of living.” – Jan Arden
“For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death – the only certainty that life holds for us – must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.” – Stanislav Grof
“The last to be overcome is death, and the knowledge of life is the knowledge of death.” – Edgar Cayce
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.” – A. Sachs
“We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.” – Graham Greene
“Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time.” – Leo Buscaglia
“Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.” – Dag Hammarskjöld
“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live you life in a manner so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.” – Native American Proverb
“The only thing we take with us when we die is the love we have given.” – Betty Eadie, near-death experiencer
“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a façade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“After you die, you wear what you are.” – St. Teresa of Avila, near-death experiencer
“After death everyone becomes what they truly are within.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life.” – Kahlil Gibran
“If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.” – Kahlil Gibran
“The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?” – Edgar Allen Poe
“Eternity is not something that begins after you’re dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now.” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon known as death, this side where we live, and the other side where we shall continue to live. Eternity does not start with death. We are in eternity now.” – Norman Vincent Peale
“Death is nothing but an eternal change, an infinity, and the life hereafter begins right now.” – Jess Weiss
“Death is simply a transition from one state of consciousness to another.” – Dr. Eben Alexander, near-death experiencer
“There is no death; there is only a change of worlds.” – Edgar Cayce
“The soul comes from elsewhere, enters into existence in this world, and returns to the world beyond.” – Plato
“For certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead.” – Bhagavad Gita
“Birth in the physical is death in the spiritual. Death in the physical is the birth in the spiritual.” – Edgar Cayce
“What we call life is a journey to death. What we call death is the gateway to life.” – Wayne Triplett
“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” – T.S. Eliot
“Every exit is an entry to somewhere else.” – Tom Stoppard
“Thus all things altered. Nothing dies. And here and there the unbodied spirit flies.” – Ovid
“From dust thou art to dust returneth, was not spoken of the soul.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach
“When we have done all the work we were sent to do, we are allowed to shed our body, which imprisons our soul like a cocoon encloses the future butterfly.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.” – David Searls
“Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” – Rossiter W. Raymond
“The grave is but a covered bridge leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Life is a dream walking. Death is going home.” – Chinese proverb
“Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.” – Mother Teresa
“There should be no fear of death, for the death of the body is but a gentle passing to a much freer life.” – Helen Greaves
“I have absolutely no fear of death. From my near-death research and my personal experiences, death is, in my judgment, simply a transition into another kind of reality.” – Raymond Moody
“Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson: you cannot die.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
“Afraid? Of whom am I afraid? Not death. For who is he?” – Emily Dickinson
“Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Death when unmasked shows us a friendly face and is a terror only at a distance.” – Oliver Goldsmith
“Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.” – Francis Bacon
“Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.” – Walt Whitman
“Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.” – Vladimir Nobokov
“In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.” – Robert G. Ingersoll
“We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
“I think of death as some delightful journey that I shall take when all my tasks are done.” – George Eliot
“I’ve told my children that when I die, to release balloons in the sky to celebrate that I graduated. For me, death is a graduation.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“And when the Earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” – Kahlil Gibran
“Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death, it is form, union, plan, it is eternal life, it is happiness.” – Walt Whitman
“God conceals from men the happiness of death that they may endure life.” – Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
“It is worth dying to find out what life is.” – T.S. Eliot
“He who does not want to die should not want to live. For life is tendered to us with the proviso of death. Life is the way to this destination.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.” – Plato
“O death! We thank you for the light that you will shed upon our ignorance.” – Jacques-Benigne Bossuet
“The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.” – William Penn
“A man is not completely born until he is dead.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Death is just a change in lifestyles.” – Stephen Levine
“We are ignorant of the beyond because this ignorance is the condition of our own life. Just as ice cannot know fire except by melting and vanishing.” – Jules Renard
“We are born with two incurable diseases, life, from which we die, and hope, which says maybe death isn’t the end.” – Andrew Greeley
“For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Death … is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” – Helen Keller
“Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.” – Kahlil Gibran
“I’m not afraid of death. It’s just that I don’t want to be there when it happens.” – Woody Allen
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Death, and (b) Afterlife Realms.
3. Quotes about NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES
“Death is nothing more than a doorway, something you walk through.” – Dr. George Ritchie, near-death experiencer
“The spirit world is not far away. It is all around us.” – Black Elk, near-death experiencer
“The other side felt like returning home after a long journey.” – Sherry Gideons, near-death experiencer
“What I experienced was more real than ordinary reality.” – Dr. Eben Alexander, near-death experiencer
“As each second passed there was more to learn, answers to questions, meanings and definitions, philosophies and reasons, histories, mysteries and so much more, all pouring into my mind. I remember thinking, ‘I knew that, I know I did, where has it all been?'” – Virginia Rivers, near-death experiencer
“The light communicated instantly through understanding, not words.” – Dr. George Ritchie, near-death experiencer
“In the light, I understood that everything is connected.” – Dr. Eben Alexander, near-death experiencer
“The light knew everything about me – every thought, every action – and loved me completely anyway.” – Howard Storm, near-death experiencer
“The love I encountered was beyond anything possible on Earth.” – Kimberly Clark Sharp, near-death experiencer
“I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.” – George Fox, near-death experiencer
“From the light we have come and to the light we all shall return.” – Josiane Antonette, near-death experiencer
“I knew with total certainty that everything was evolving exactly the way it should and that the ultimate destiny for every living being is to return to the Source, The Light, Pure Love..” – Juliet Nightingale, near-death experiencer
“[The light] showed me that God is love. By spreading love, you make God stronger. By making God stronger, He can, in return, help you. He told me your love has to be unconditional. That is the only rule he really has.” – Dannion Brinkley, near-death experiencer
“I learned that the purpose of life is to learn how to love and to help others.” – Dr. George Ritchie, near-death experiencer
“One of the near-death experience truths is that each person integrates their near-death experience into their own pre-existing belief system.” – Jody Long, near-death researcher
“Although my near-death experience was nearly thirty four years ago, there is virtually not a day that goes by that I am not aware of making decisions based on that experience.” – Geraldine Berkheimer, near-death experiencer
“When snatched from the jaws of death, tooth marks are to be expected.” – Hal Story, near-death experiencer
“I knew that I was in a state of hell, but this was not the typical ‘fire and brimstone’ hell that I had learned about as a young child. …. Men and women of all ages, but no children, were standing or squatting or wandering about …. Some were mumbling to themselves. …. They were completely self-absorbed, every one of them too caught up in his or her own misery to engage in any mental or emotional exchange.” – Angie Fenimore, a near-death experiencer
“I had a descent into what you might call Hell …. I did not see Satan or evil. My descent into Hell was a descent into each person’s customized human misery, ignorance, and darkness of not-knowing. It seemed like a miserable eternity. But each of the millions of souls around me had a little star of light always available. But no one seemed to pay attention to it. They were so consumed with their own grief, trauma and misery.” – Mellen-Thomas Benedict, near-death experiencer
“Hell is a state of being we create by being away from God until we choose to return to him. It is a state totally devoid of love.” – Sandra Rogers, near-death experiencer
“The ‘hell’ that I experienced was the pain, anguish, hurt and anger that I had caused others, or that I suffered as a result of my actions/words to others. ‘Hell’ was what I had created for myself and my own soul through turning my back on unconditional love, compassion and peace.” – Tina, a near-death experiencer
“The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they’re not punishing you, they’re freeing your soul.” – Meister Eckhart
“We are going to link up, hold hands, and walk out of hell together.” – Mellen-Thomas Benedict, near-death experiencer
“It [suicide] is like killing a plant or flower before it’s full-grown or before it’s served its purpose … The only thing that I can think and comprehend is that to try and understand reincarnation. That somehow, instead of evolving, you would regress.” – a quote from a near-death experiencer in Dr. Ken Ring’s study
“While the person who commits suicide dies only once, the loved ones left behind may die a thousand deaths wondering why.” – Anonymous
“If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there’s not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing.” – Dr. Dianne Morrissey, a near-death experiencer
“I still live. Pretty.” – famous last words of Daniel Webster
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Out-of-Body Experiences, (b) the Silver Cord, (c) The Light, (d) Hell, (e) The Void, (f) The Tunnel, (g) Orbs, (h) Afterlife Realms, (i) Life Review, (j) Forgotten Knowledge, (k) Told Not Ready, (l) Spirit Guides, (m) Veridical Perception, (n) Consciousness Expansion, (o) Soul Merge, (p) The Barrier, (q) Aftereffects, and (r) Suicide.
4. Quotes about HEAVEN
“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” – C. S. Lewis
“The kingdom of God is within you.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of Luke 17:20-21
“Heaven is not a place; it is a state of consciousness.” – Edgar Cayce
“A person carries his heaven and hell within himself.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” – John Milton
“No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.” – Fra Giovanni Giocondo
“As much of heaven is visible as we have eyes to see.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” – William Blake
“For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of John 3:20-21
“The first step toward heaven is to turn away from self and turn toward others.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“You’ll not be in heaven if you’re not leaning on the arm of someone you have helped.” – Edgar Cayce
“In heaven, all people are known by their love.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love.” – Thornton Wilder
“The whole heaven resembles one human being.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“You don’t go to heaven. You grow to heaven.” – Edgar Cayce
“Heaven is not granted to anyone because of blind faith, but because of the life they have lived.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“The best way to get to heaven is to take it with you.” – Henry Drummond
“There are many rooms in the Father’s House just as there are many grades in school. The period of time we spend on Earth is but one grade of life. It is but a beginning.” – Robert A. Russell
“What springs from Earth dissolves to Earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Think of stepping on the shore and finding it heaven, of touching a hand and finding it God’s, of breathing new air and finding it celestial, of waking up in glory and finding it home.” – Don Wyrtzen
“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” – Thomas Moore
“To appreciate heaven well it is good for a man to have some fifteen minutes of hell.” – Will Carleton
“I believe all drunks go to heaven, because they’ve been through hell on Earth.” – Liza Minnelli
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Heaven, (b) Heavenly Structures, (c) Cities of Light, (d) Intense Emotions, (e) Telepathy, (f) Temple of Knowledge, (g) Music, and (h) Homecoming.
5. Quotes about LOVE
“Love is God. Live in love.” – Edgar Cayce
“For what is heaven? Love.” – Edgar Cayce
“The only reality is God. There cannot be another and God is love.” – Linda Stewart, near-death experience
“Yes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by God given to lift from Earth our low desire.” – Lord Byron
“To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.” – Karen Sunde
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Your religion is where your love is.” – Henry David Thoreau
“To love another person is to help them love God.” – Soren Kierkegaard
“The measure of love is to love without measure.” – Saint Augustine
“Love as much as you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” – Kevin Williams
“The quickest way to change the world is to be of service to others. Show that your love can make a difference in the lives of people and thereby someone else’s love can make a difference in your life. By each of us doing that and working together we change the world one inner person at a time.” – Dannion Brinkley, near-death experiencer
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of Love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, humans will discover fire.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Love is a sign from the heavens that you are here for a reason.” – J. Ghetto
“Love cannot save life from death, but it can fulfill life’s purpose.” – Arnold Toynbee
“When we come to the last moment of this lifetime and we look back across it, the only thing that’s going to matter is ‘What is the quality of our love?'” – Richard Bach
“In the end, the only thing that matters is how much love we shared.” – Dannion Brinkley, near-death experiencer
“Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.” – Louisa May Alcott
“A person’s ruling love remains with them after death for eternity.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“In the spiritual world distance is not measured by space, but by differences of love.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.” – T.S. Eliot
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Love (b) Spirituality and (c) God.
6. Quotes about LIFE
“From an endless dream we have come. In an endless dream we are living. To an endless dream we shall return.” – Andrea Kushi
“In each atom, in each corpuscle, is life. Life is what you worship as God … and Earth is only an atom in the universe of worlds.” – Edgar Cayce
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole whose body Nature is, and God the soul.” – Alexander Pope
“For life and death are one, and only those who will consider the experience as one may come to understand or comprehend what peace indeed means.” – Edgar Cayce
“Every person is created to live forever.” – Emanuel Swedenborg
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
“You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” – George MacDonald
“It is within you that the divine lives.” – Joseph Campbell
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.” – Carl Jung
“The longest journey is the journey inwards of him who has chosen his destiny, who has started upon his quest for the source of his being.” – Dag Hammarskjold
“The purpose of life is to know yourself, to be yourself, and to become all that you are capable of becoming.” – Edgar Cayce
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – Carl Jung
“Life is a school where you learn how to remember what your soul already knows.” – Dan Millman
“Life on Earth is a classroom for the soul.” – Karen Thomas, near-death experiencer
“Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Nothing in life is to be feared, only understood.” – Madame Marie Curie
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” – Buddhist proverb
“Come forth into the light of things. Let nature be your teacher.” – William Wordsworth
“He who understands nature walks close with God.” – Edgar Cayce
“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” – Aart Van Der Leeuw
“The soul is here for its own joy.” – Jelaluddin Rumi
“Dance as though no one is watching. Love as though you’ve never been hurt. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on Earth.” – Jelaluddin Rumi
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The person who has lived longest is not the person who has counted most years, but he who has enjoyed life most.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – Maya Angelou
“It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth — and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies, in the emotional universe which we inhabit.” – Bishop Fulton Sheen
“The spirit is life. The mind is the builder. The physical realm is the result.” – Edgar Cayce
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of being.” – Carl Jung
“Each soul enters with a mission. We all have a mission to perform.” – Edgar Cayce
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picasso
“We are here to become more loving.” – P. M. H. Atwater, near-death experiencer
“The purpose of our lives is to bring more love into the world.” – Anita Moorjani, near-death experiencer
“Day by day we are building for eternity … Every gentle word, every generous thought, every unselfish deed will become a pillar of eternal beauty in the life to come.” – Rebecca Springer, near-death experiencer
“When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” – Indian proverb
“For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.” – William Shakespeare
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Life, (b) Life’s Mission, (c) Pre-Birth, (d) Earth, (e) Humanity, (f) Animals, (g) Life Review, (h) Future of Humanity, (i) Sex, and (j) Knowledge.
7. Quotes about RELIGION
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” – Prophet Isaiah, Book of Isaiah 9:2
“Behold, a sacred voice is calling you. All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.” – Black Elk
“What we are looking for is what is looking.” – St. Francis of Assisi
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” – Winston Churchill
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” – Albert Einstein
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The best religion is the religion that brings you closest to God.” – Howard Storm, near-death experiencer
“There are innumerable definitions of God because his manifestations are innumerable.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“The guides taught us that doctrine and creed and race meant nothing. No matter what we believed we were all children joined under one God, and that the only rule was God’s true law – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” – May Eulitt, near-death experiencer
“Those religions which claim some singular relationship with God, claim superiority over others, or exclude people for various reasons, go against God’s law that we love one another as we love ourselves.” – Sandra Rogers, near-death experiencer
“It is love, not religion, that creates spiritual growth.” – Sandra Rogers, near-death experiencer
“The purpose of religion is not so much to get us into heaven, or to keep us out of hell, but to put a little bit of heaven into us, and take the hell out of us. This has always been the greatest responsibility of religion.” – E. Stanley Jones
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness, in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“For love is as strong as death; ardent love is as unrelenting as Sheol. Love’s flames are fiery flames- the fiercest of all. Mighty waters cannot extinguish love; rivers cannot sweep it away.” – Song of Songs 8:6-7
“One good deed is worth a thousand prayers.” – Zarathustra
“By giving away food we get more strength. By bestowing clothing on others we gain more beauty. By donating abodes of purity and truth we acquire great treasures.” – The Buddha
“Every person we meet is part of our spiritual growth.” – Vincent Tolman, near-death experiencer
“The conquering of self is truly greater than were one to conquer many worlds.” – Edgar Cayce
“God listens not to your words save when he utters them through your lips.” – Kahlil Gibran
“For sure, I tell you, whoever puts his trust in me can do the things I am doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of John 14:12
“Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of Thomas
“People who say they will first die and then arise are mistaken. If they do not first receive resurrection while they are alive, once they have died they will receive nothing.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of Philip
“The accursed ones [the Gnostics] say ‘Certainly we also are able to become sons of God, just like that one [Christ].” – Alexander of Alexandria, fourth century A.D.
“Self-luminous is Brahman, ever present in the hearts of all. He is the refuge of all, he is the supreme goal … Attain him, O my friend, the one goal to be attained!” – Mundaka Upanishad
“One in all, All in one, If only this is realized, No more worry about not being perfect!” – Third Patriarch of Zen
“Never the spirit was born, the spirit shall cease to be never. Never was time it was not, end and beginning are dreams.” – Bhagavad Gita
“We have no evidence whatsoever that the soul perishes with the body.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“As the moon dies and comes to life again, so we also, having to die, will rise again.” – San Juan Capistrano Indians of California
“You live on Earth only for a few short years which you call an incarnation, and then you leave your body as an outworn dress and go for refreshment to your true home in the spirit.” – Chief White Eagle
“Die happily and look forward to taking up a new and better form. Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.” – Jelaluddin Rumi
“When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found.” – Sufi aphorism
“I am borne away by the mighty and shining ones.” – Egyptian Book of the Dead
“I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.” – Helen Keller
“All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of Earth. Humans did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.” – Chief Seattle
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Religion, (b) Spirituality, (c) Soul and Spirit, (d) Prayer, (e) God, (f) Being of Light, (g) Higher Self, (h) Jesus, (i) The Buddha, (j) Angels, (k) Spirit Guides, (l) Council of Elders, (m) Satan, (n) Astrology, (o) Karma, and (p) Reincarnation.
8. Quotes about SCIENCE
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
“Real science can be far stranger than science fiction and much more satisfying.” – Stephen Hawking
“It is strange, but true; for truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.” – Lord Byron
“Reality is not only stranger than we suppose but stranger than we can suppose.” – J. B. S. Haldane
“The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind.” – Emily Dickinson
“Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world. All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.” – Albert Einstein
“Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.” – Claude Bernard
“A mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Even a thought, even a possibility, can shatter us and transform us.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“There is only one thing more powerful than all the armies of the world, that is an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.” – James Joyce
“I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible.” – William James
“Do you remember how electrical currents and ‘unseen waves’ were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.” – Albert Einstein
“The brain has not explained the mind fully.” – Wilder Penfield, MD
“There is no reality in the absence of observation.” – The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
“Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” – Albert Einstein
“The visible world is the invisible organization of energy.” – Heinz Pagels
“Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our understanding.” – Freeman Dyson
“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force … We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” – Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning Father of Quantum Theory
“In order to more fully understand this reality, we must take into account other dimensions of a broader reality.” – John A. Wheeler
“Not only does God play dice, but … he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.” – Stephen Hawking
“A miracle is not the breaking of physical laws, but rather represents laws which are incomprehensible to us.” – George Gurdjieff
“There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.” – Stephen Hawking
“The unconscious psyche believes in life after death” – Carl Jung
“When we attempt to imagine death, we perceive ourselves as spectators.” – Sigmund Freud
“The modern tradition of equating death with an ensuing nothingness can be abandoned. For there is no reason to believe that human death severs the quality of the oneness in the universe.” – Larry Dossey, MD
“The sheer volume of evidence for survival after death is so immense that to ignore it is like standing at the foot of Mount Everest and insisting that you cannot see the mountain.” – Colin Wilson
“Although each of us obviously inhabits a separate physical body, the laboratory data from a hundred years of parapsychology research strongly indicate that there is no separation in consciousness.” – Russell Targ
“I have yet to meet a single person from our culture, no matter what his or her educational background, IQ, and specific training, who had powerful transpersonal experiences and continues to subscribe to the materialistic monism of Western science.” – Albert Einstein
“A full-spectrum approach to human consciousness and behavior means that men and women have available to them a spectrum of knowing – a spectrum that includes, at the very least, the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of spirit.” – Ken Wilber
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
“Perhaps there is a pattern set up in the heavens for one who desires to see it, and having seen it, to find one in himself.” – Plato
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.” – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
“Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, But do not be disheartened, The source they come from is eternal, growing, branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you. And this whole world is springing up from it.” – Jelauddin Rumi
“It gives me a deep comforting sense that ‘things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.'” – Helen Keller
“Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate, sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth … home. My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.” – Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and founder, Institute of Noetic Sciences
“I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man’s life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.” – Ben Jonson
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Science, (b) War and Evil, (c) Knowledge, and (d) Time.
9. Quotes about REINCARNATION
“Earthly life is only a brief moment in the long history of the soul.” – Betty Eadie, near-death experiencer
“Our true identity is much greater than the personality we wear during one lifetime.” – Sharon Stone, near-death experiencer
“The soul’s journey is far longer and more beautiful than one earthly life.” – Dr. George Ritchie, near-death experiencer
“The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.” – Khalil Gibran
“I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through innumerable millennia.” – Jack London
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, hath had elsewhere its setting.” – William Wordsworth
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” – Book of Jeremiah 1:5
“Blessed is the one who came into being before coming into being.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of Thomas
“I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence.” – Socrates
“The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew.” – Plato
“As a man casts off worn-out garments and puts on new ones, so the embodied soul casts off worn-out bodies and enters others that are new.” – Bhagavad Gita
“The soul passes from body to body as a bird flies from one tree to another.” – Rumi
“We have all lived before and we shall live again.” – Rudolf Steiner
“Every soul is destined to live through many lives before reaching perfection.” – Giordano Bruno
“The soul’s journey is long, and many lifetimes are but chapters in a single story.” – Richard Bach
“There was a sense that existence is ongoing, that consciousness keeps unfolding beyond a single lifetime.” – Dr. Eben Alexander, near-death experiencer
“I understood that we live many lives. We return again and again to learn different lessons.” – Betty Eadie, near-death experiencer
“I saw that the soul evolves through many experiences and lifetimes.” – Dannion Brinkley, near-death experiencer
“We are spiritual beings having repeated human experiences for the purpose of learning.” – P. M. H. Atwater, near-death experiencer
“I understood that spiritual growth is a process unfolding across lifetimes.” – Dannion Brinkley, near-death experiencer
“We are here to grow in love, and that growth may continue over many lifetimes.” – Dr. Raymond Moody, near-death experience researcher
“The soul keeps creating opportunities for growth until wisdom and love are fully awakened.” – Dr. Raymond Moody, near-death experience researcher
“The purpose of repeated earthly experiences is to learn unconditional love.” – Betty Eadie, near-death experiencer
“I felt that life on Earth was like a school and that we return until we learn how to love completely.” – P. M. H. Atwater, near-death experiencer
“Life is a school for the soul, and death is only graduation into another classroom.” – Edgar Cayce
“The soul comes into the world again and again to complete what was left unfinished.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
“The soul returns not as punishment, but because it desires greater understanding and compassion.” – P. M. H. Atwater, near-death experiencer
“I was shown that souls return in different circumstances to balance and learn compassion.” – Shanti Devi
“The soul never takes on a new body randomly. Each life is shaped by the lessons left unfinished in the last.” – Edgar Cayce
“I knew that every experience in every lifetime contributes to the growth of the soul.” – Dannion Brinkley, near-death experiencer
“I saw that souls are connected across lifetimes in ways that help each other learn compassion.” – P. M. H. Atwater, near-death experiencer
“There is a larger plan to existence, and each lifetime contributes to the awakening of the soul.” – Anita Moorjani, near-death experiencer
“I was shown that every soul has a purpose stretching far beyond one single human life.” – Anita Moorjani, near-death experiencer
“The soul remembers where it has been, even when the mind does not.” – Brian Weiss
“The longest journey you will ever take is from your head to your soul – and perhaps through many lifetimes.” – Carl Jung
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” – Book of Ecclesiastes 1:9
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there.” – Book of Job 1:21
“And if you are willing to accept it, he (John the Baptist) is Elijah who is to come.” – Jesus Christ, Gospel of Matthew 11:14
“His disciples asked him, ‘Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?’ Jesus replied, ‘Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him.’ Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.” – Gospel of Matthew 17:10–13
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” – Gospel of John 9:2
“The transmigrations (reincarnation) of souls was taught for a long time among the early Christians as an esoteric and traditional doctrine which was to be divulged to only a small number of the elect.” – Jerome
“The Gnosis itself is that which has descended by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the apostles.” – Clement of Alexandria
“I am not ashamed to confess that there are secret things not discussed openly.” – Clement of Alexandria
“We die and are born again many times, passing through various conditions.” – Basilides
“Is it not more in conformity with reason that every soul, for certain mysterious reasons, is introduced into a body according to its deserts and former actions?” – Origen
“The soul has neither beginning nor end… Every soul comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life.” – Origen
“The soul which has no fixed direction falls again into the world.” – Origen
“In so speaking he (Origen) clearly supports the doctrine of transmigration (reincarnation) taught by Pythagoras and Plato.” – Jerome
“God’s justice extends beyond one earthly lifetime.” – Gregory of Nyssa
“The soul rises by stages to the divine, purified through many experiences.” – Gregory of Nyssa
“The doctrine of transmigration from body to body is a part of the secret teachings of the Gnostics and Manichaeans.” – Jerome
“If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it, let him be anathema [excommunicated].” – Decrees of the Second Council of Constantinople of the Catholic Church, 553 A.D.
Read more NDE Quotes about: (a) Reincarnation, (b) Karma, (c) Reincarnation in the Bible, (d) Reincarnation in Early Christianity, (e) Reincarnation in Early Church History.
10. Conclusion
The many quotes in this collection share a strong and repeated message found in near-death experiences (NDEs), spirituality, philosophy, religion, and even science: consciousness, love, and meaning may continue beyond physical death. Even though these voices come from different cultures, time periods, and belief systems, they often point to the same deep ideas. They suggest that life has purpose, love never ends, and death is not the end of existence but a transition into a greater reality.
What makes quotes connected to NDEs especially interesting is how often they sound alike. People who have had NDEs often describe overwhelming love, expanded awareness, a feeling of connection to everything, and a sense of returning home. Mystics, philosophers, poets, and spiritual teachers throughout history have shared very similar ideas long before modern research on NDEs began. When these different perspectives are viewed together, they create a bigger picture suggesting that humanity may share a deep spiritual understanding about the nature of existence.
These quotes also challenge some of humanity’s greatest fears. Instead of describing death as total destruction or nothingness, many describe it as an awakening, a transformation, a release, or a reunion with a greater source of love and consciousness. They encourage people to live with more compassion, focus on inner growth, value relationships, and recognize the spiritual importance of everyday life. Again and again, the main lesson found in these reflections is simple but powerful: love matters most.
Whether people see these quotes as spiritual truth, symbolic wisdom, personal experience, or philosophical insight, they continue to inspire hope, curiosity, and deep thought. They remind us that the mystery of life and death may be much greater – and much more beautiful – than we ever imagined.
