Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us

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

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.

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.

There are two good rules which ought to be written on every heart - never to believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true; never to tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening.

Look around for a place to sow a few seeds.

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

Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.

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.

Genius is talent set on fire by courage.

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

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

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.

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice; but for those who love, Time is Eternity.

A clean and sensitive conscience, a steadfast and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as great, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual.

It is better to desire the things we have than to have the things we desire.

Live by admiration rather than disgust. Judge people by their best, not by their worst.

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