Henry Jackson van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) was an American author, educator, and clergyman. He was a short-story writer, poet, and essayist famous in the early decades of the 20th century.
Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, van Dyke graduated from the Princeton theological seminary in 1877. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Brooklyn in 1879. He served as pastor at churches in Rhode Island and New York City until 1900, when he returned to Princeton as a professor of English literature, serving until 1923. From 1913–17, he served as the American minister to the Netherlands.
Van Dyke’s early works, moralistic essays such as The Story of the Other Wise Man (1896) and The First Christmas Tree (1897,) were first read aloud to his congregations as sermons. These quickly brought him recognition. He also wrote such essays on outdoor life as Little Rivers (1895) and Fisherman’s Luck (1899.)
Other stories and anecdotal tales were gathered at regular intervals into volumes. Among these collections were The Ruling Passion (1901,) The Blue Flower (1902,) The Unknown Quantity (1912,) The Valley of Vision (1919,) and The Golden Key (1926.)
Van Dyke’s popularity also extended to his verse, collected in Poems (1920.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Henry van Dyke Jr.
There is no conflict between the Old and the New; the conflict is between the False and the True.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Truth
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Self-Discovery
Be glad of life because it gives you to chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Living, Life, Blessings, Life and Living, Stars
Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you … to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old … Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest ting in the world … stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death… Then you can keep Christmas! But you can never keep it alone.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Christmas
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 not.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Time Management, Time
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 Jr.
Topics: Life and Living, Fame
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 Jr.
Topics: Criticism, Critics
Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home, sweet home
For there the heart can rest.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Home
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.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Conscience
Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul may keep the path, but will not reach the goal; while he who walks in love may wander far, yet God will bring him where the blessed are.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Heaven
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 not.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Time
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.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Joy, Peace, Love
Four things a man must learn to do if he would make his record true: To think without confusion clearly; To love his fellow-men sincerely; To act from honest motives purely; To trust in God and Heaven securely.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
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.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Christmas
Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Dying, Anxiety, Fear, Death
The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride; the threshold high enough to turn deceit aside; the door-band strong enough from robbers to defend: this door will open at a touch to welcome every friend.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Friendship
Gratitude is a twofold love—love coming to visit us, and love running out to greet a welcome guest.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Gratitude
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 Jr.
Topics: Morals, Government
Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Culture
A peace that depends on fear is nothing but a suppressed war.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Peace
There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Man, Mankind
The task and triumph of religion is to make men and nations true and just and upright in all their dealings, and to bring all law as well as all conduct into subjection and conformity to the law of God.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Christianity, Religion
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.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Character
Who can explain the secret pathos of Nature’s loveliness? It is a touch of melancholy inherited from our mother Eve. It is an unconscious memory of the lost Paradise. It is the sense that even if we should find another Eden, we would not be fit to enjoy it perfectly nor stay in it forever.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Nature
The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Perspective
Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Gratitude, Feelings, Thankfulness
There is no personal charm so great as the charm of a cheerful temperament.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Charm
Christianity requires two things from every man who believes in it: first, to acquire property by just and righteous means, and second, to look not only on his own things, but also on the things of others.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Christianity
To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of humankind—this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Service, Helpfulness
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.
Hours fly, flowers die,
new days, new ways pass by,
Love stays.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Time, Time Management, Spending time wisely, Love
Natural beauty and wonder are priceless heirlooms which God has bestowed upon our nation. How shall we escape the contempt of the coming generation if we suffer this irreplaceable heritage to be wasted?
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Wilderness
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Wildlife, Talent, Birds
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 Jr.
Topics: Thinking
In the progress of personality, first comes a declaration of independence, then a recognition of interdependence.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Personality, Friendship, Friends
Look around for a place to sow a few seeds.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Giving, Charity
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; and never to tell that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening while you tell it.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Gossip
Happiness is inward and not outward; and so it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Happiness
What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
After all, the Bible must be its own argument and defence. The power of it can never be proved unless it is felt. The authority of it can never be supported unless it is manifest. The light of it can never be demonstrated unless it shines.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Bible
As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
—Henry van Dyke Jr.
Topics: Habit
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