Eden Quotes

• The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

  John Milton

  Hands, World, Way

  Paradise Regained bk. 4, l. 220 (1671) SeeWilliamWordsworth 12

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• A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?

  John Steinbeck

  Life, Integrity, Character

  John Steinbeck (1952). “East of Eden, And, The Wayward Bus”

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• This I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.

  John Steinbeck

  Freedom, Fighting, Mind

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.116, Penguin

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• I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.... The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

  John Steinbeck

  Believe, Eggs, Perfect

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.66, Penguin

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• The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.

  Nadine Gordimer

  Writing, Creative, Realizing

  "The Tanner Lectures on Human Values". Book edited by Sterling McMurrin, 1980.

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• I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

  John Steinbeck

  Life, Kindness, Believe

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• But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.

  John Steinbeck

  Unique, Soul, Lovely

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, Penguin

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• We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

  John Steinbeck

  Evil, Vices, Stories

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.363, Penguin

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• No one who is young is ever going to be old.

  John Steinbeck

  Youth, Young, East Of Eden

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.82, Penguin

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• I also know that we must cultivate our garden. For when man was put in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, to work; which proves that man was not born for rest.

  Voltaire

  Men, Garden, Born

  "Candide, Zadig, and Selected Stories".

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• And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

  John Steinbeck

  Inspirational, Freedom, Believe

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.116, Penguin

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• There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

  Matthew Simpson

  Errors, Goes On, Conflict

  Matthew Simpson (1885). “Sermons”

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• It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

  John Steinbeck

  Angel, Devil, Would Be

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.116, Penguin

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• This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.

  John Steinbeck

  Freedom, Fighting, Government

  John Steinbeck (2012). “The Portable Steinbeck”, p.827, Penguin

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• But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Giving, Choices

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, Penguin

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• In the beginning, after this earth was prepared for man, the Lord commenced his work upon what is now called the American continent, where the Garden of Eden was made. In the days of Noah, in the days of the floating of the ark, he took the people to another part of the earth; the earth was divided, and there he set up his kingdom

  Brigham Young

  Men, Garden, People

  Brigham Young (1860). “Journal of Discourses”

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• Barbara Eden is the most beautiful girl in the world.

  Larry Hagman

  Beautiful, Girl, Real Men

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Why have we had to invent Eden, to live submerged in the nostalgia of a lost paradise, to make up utopias, propose a future for ourselves?

  Julio Cortazar

  Paradise, Nostalgia, Utopia

  Julio Cortazar (2016). “Hopscotch, Blow-Up, We Love Glenda So Much”, p.210, Everyman's Library

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• It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

  John Steinbeck

  Death, Two, Dying

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.363, Penguin

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• We must cultivate our own garden.

  Voltaire

  Healing, Garden, Pulling Weeds

  1759 Candide, ch.30.

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• The loss of Eden is personally experienced by every one of us as we leave the wonder and magic and also the pains and terrors of childhood.

  Dennis Potter

  Pain, Loss, Childhood

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• The male has been persuaded to assume a certain onerous and disagreeable role with the promise of rewards -- material and psychological. Women may in the first place even have put it into his head. BE A MAN! may have been, metaphorically, what Eve uttered at the critical moment in the garden of Eden.

  Wyndham Lewis

  Men, Garden, Promise

  Wyndham Lewis (1989). “The Essential Wyndham Lewis: An Introduction to His Work”, Andre Deutsch Limited

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• Little deeds of kindness
  Little words of love;
  Help to make earth an Eden
  Like the heaven above.

  Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney

  Love, Happiness, Thank You

  Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney, “Little Things”

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• No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that, it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Fate, Picnics, Innocence

  'Out of a Book' in 'Orion III' (ed. Rosamund Lehmann et al, 1946)

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• What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?

  Countee Cullen

  Strong, Stars, Men

  1925 On These I Stand,'Heritage'.

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