200 Quotes by Henry Van Dyke

The simple life which blandly ignores all care and conflict, soon becomes flabby and invertebrate, sentimental and gelatinous.

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, God of glory, Lord of Love; Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flowery meadow, flashing sea, Chanting bird and flowing fountain, Call us to rejoice in Thee.

We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true measure is appreciation. He who loves most has most.

We may be able to tell how many stars are in the Milky Way; we may be able to count the petals of every flower, and number the bones of every bird; but unless faith leads us to a deeper understanding, a more reverent comprehension of the significance of the universe, God can be no more pleased with our knowledge than the painter is pleased with the fly which touches his picture with its feelers, and sips the varnish from the surface, and dies without dreaming of the meaning, thought, feeling, embodied in the colors.

How fascinating is death, the extinction of life. One moment here and the next gone. The light put out and only the empty bag of the body left.

Favorite People, Favorite Places, Favorite Memories of the past ... These are the joys of a lifetime Those are the things that last

Memory is a capricious and arbitrary creature. You never can tell what pebble she will pick up from the shore of life to keep among her treasures, or what inconspicuous flower of the field she will preserve as the symbol of "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." . . . And yet I do not doubt that the most Important things are always the best remembered.

A tear that trembles for a little while Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world Wavers within its circle like a dream, Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.

There is no conflict between the Old and the New; the conflict is between the False and the True.