Top 100 Henry van Dyke Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “It is better to follow even the shadow of the best, than to remain content with the worst.”

— Henry van Dyke

52. “Never believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true; never tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary – and remember that God is listening while you tell it.”

— Henry van Dyke

53. “The Bible teaches that God owns the world. He distributes to every man according to His own good pleasure, conformably to general laws.”

— Henry van Dyke

54. “No amount of energy will take the place of thought. A strenuous life with its eyes shut is a kind of wild insanity.”

— Henry van Dyke

55. “A clean and sensitive conscience, a steady and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as large, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual.”

— Henry van Dyke

56. “In love and friendship, small, steady payments on a gold basis are better than immense promissory notes.”

— Henry van Dyke

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

— Henry van Dyke

58. “If all the world were music, Our hearts would often long For one sweet strain of silence. To break the endless song.”

— Henry van Dyke

59. “The more keenly we are awake to the perils of life, the higher and grander is the possibility of being truly brave.”

— Henry van Dyke

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

— Henry van Dyke

61. “Love that leads life upward is the noblest and the best.”

— Henry van Dyke

62. “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.”

— Henry van Dyke

63. “You never see the stock called Happiness quoted on the exchange.”

— Henry van Dyke

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

— Henry van Dyke

65. “Time is: Too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear.”

— Henry van Dyke

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

— Henry van Dyke

67. “Tact is the unsaid part of what you think.”

— Henry van Dyke

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

— Henry van Dyke

69. “There is only one way to get ready for immortality, and that is to love this life and live it as bravely and faithfully and cheerfully as we can.”

— Henry van Dyke

70. “The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride; The threshold high enough to turn deceit aside; The doorband strong enough from robbers to defend; This door will open at a touch to welcome every friend.”

— Henry van Dyke

71. “Flowers rejoice when night is done, Lift their heads to greet the sun; Sweetest looks and odours raise, In a silent hymn of praise.”

— Henry van Dyke

72. “Modest egotism is the salt of conversation; you do not want too much of it, but if it is altogether omitted, everything tastes flat.”

— Henry van Dyke

73. “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.”

— Henry van Dyke

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

— Henry van Dyke

75. “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.”

— Henry van Dyke

76. “The kingdom of birds is divided into two departments – birds and House Sparrows. House Sparrows are not real birds – they are little beasts!”

— Henry van Dyke

77. “What is Friendship? Something deep That the heart can spend and keep: Wealth that greatens while we give, Praise that heartens us to live.”

— Henry van Dyke

78. “Of all the things that man has made, no is so full of interest and charm, none possesses so distinct a life and character of its own, as a ship.”

— Henry van Dyke

79. “I thank God for the honesty and virility of Jesus religion which makes us face the facts and calls us to take a man’s part in the real battle of life.”

— Henry van Dyke

80. “For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river.”

— Henry van Dyke

81. “You may have to live in a crowd, but you do not have to live like it.”

— Henry van Dyke

82. “A flawless cup: how delicate and fine The flowing curve of every jewelled line! Look, turn it up or down, ’tis perfect still – But holds no drop of life’s heart-warming wine.”

— Henry van Dyke

83. “But this I know. Those who seek Him will do well to look among the poor and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed.”

— Henry van Dyke

84. “Lord, when my spirit shall return to thee, At the foot of a friendly tree let my body be buried, That this dust may rise and rejoice among the branches.”

— Henry van Dyke

85. “Many a treasure besides Ali Baba’s is unlocked with a verbal key.”

— Henry van Dyke

86. “We are all swimmers in God’s mighty sea.”

— Henry van Dyke

87. “The Bible does not profess to make men omniscient, but simply to tell them enough to make them happy and good, if they will believe it and live up to it.”

— Henry van Dyke

88. “In warlike pomp, with banners flowing, The regiments of autumn stood: I saw their gold and scarlet glowing From every hillside, every wood.”

— Henry van Dyke

89. “It is better to desire the things we have than to have the things we desire.”

— Henry van Dyke

90. “Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay, The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away: Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.”

— Henry van Dyke

91. “Fidelity is simply daring to be true in small things as well as great.”

— Henry van Dyke

92. “What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us.”

— Henry van Dyke

93. “A little while the rose, And after that the thorn; An hour of dewy morn, And then the glamour goes. Ah, love in beauty born, A little while the rose!”

— Henry van Dyke

94. “No matter what theory of the origin of government you adopt, if you follow it out to its legitimate conclusions it will bring you face to face with the moral law.”

— Henry van Dyke

95. “Like water spilt upon the ground – alas, Our little lives flow swiftly on and pass; Yet may they bring rich harvests and green grass!”

— Henry van Dyke

96. “Oh It’s home again, and homed again, America for me. I want a ship that’s Westward bound, to plough the rolling sea.”

— Henry van Dyke

97. “He that planteth a tree is a servant of God, he provideth a kindness for many generations, and faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.”

— Henry van Dyke

98. “Christ never asks us to give up merely for the sake of giving up, but always in order to win something better.”

— Henry van Dyke

99. “Spend as much time as possible, with body and with spirit in God’s out-of-doors.”

— Henry van Dyke

100. “The proverb says that ‘well begun is half done.’ But the other half is harder and more necessary,-to get a thing well ended.”

— Henry van Dyke