Quotes from Henry Van Dyke

Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul; Love is the only angel who can bid the gates unroll...

Use what talents you possess the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Deeds not Words: I say so too! And yet I find it somehow true, A word may help a man in need, To nobler act and braver deed.

Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul...

It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with.

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.

Deliberation is necessary, unless we wish to play a fool's part. No amount of energy will take the place of thought. A strenuous life, with its eyes shut, is a kind of wild insanity. A drifting life, with its eyes open, is a kind of mild idiocy.

Love is not getting, but giving

Love is not getting, but giving. Not a wild dream of pleasure and madness of desire - oh, no - love is not that! It is goodness and honor and peace and pure living - yes, love is that and it is the best thing in the world and the thing that lives the longest.

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.

In the progress of personality, first comes a declaration of independence, then a recognition of interdependence.

As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.

It is not the gift, but the thought that counts.

Like what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is toil.

The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses.

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.

It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with.

A peace that depends on fear is nothing but a suppressed war.

Oh, it's home again and home again, America for me! I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea To the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars, Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life.

Some people are so afraid do die that they never begin to live.

Love is the best thing in the world, and the thing that lives the longest.