Eternity (or forever) is endless time. It is often referenced in the context of religion, in the concept of immortality, whereby death is conquered, and people may live for an unlimited amount of time (cf. Heaven). The existence of God or gods is said to endure eternally and sometimes also the natural cosmos, in respect to both past and future.
By contrast, the concept of a mathematically infinite duration, is called sempiternity or everlasting. Whereas the eternal is said to be unchanging and outside time; a potentially sempiternal span of time can never come to pass in actuality. Aristotle argued that the cosmos has no beginning.
Read more about Eternity: The Idea of Eternity, God and Eternity, Symbolism
Famous quotes containing the word eternity:
“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there. For there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“For a person who is dying only eternity counts.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“But what does an eternity of damnation matter to one who has found for one second the infinity of pleasure?”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)