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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• 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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• 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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• We must cultivate our own garden.

  Voltaire

  Healing, Garden, Pulling Weeds

  1759 Candide, ch.30.

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• Fake is as old as the Eden tree.

  Orson Welles

  Fake People, Fake, Tree

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• Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Garden, Apples, Judging

  Chuck Palahniuk (1999). “Survivor: A Novel”, Anchor

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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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• Eden ha[s] put his country in a position where she sustained the greatest diplomatic reverse since Bismarck in similar circumstances had called Palmerston's bluff in the matter of Schleswig-Holstein...Further damage was done when Russia proved by her action in Spain, that she was not a good European as Mr. Eden had assured the world was the case.

  Anthony Eden

  Country, Russia, Spain

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• The voice that breathed o'er Eden, That earliest wedding day.

  John Keble

  Wedding, Voice, Love And Marriage

  'Holy Matrimony' (1869)

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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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• 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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• 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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• But 'Thou mayest!'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win

  John Steinbeck

  Brother, Fighting, Winning

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.265, 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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• Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?

  John Steinbeck

  Doubt, Maybe Love, Suspicious

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.64, 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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• 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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• 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...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...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'. ch 24

  John Steinbeck

  Fighting, Winning, Unique

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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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• 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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• 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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• And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely.

  John Steinbeck

  Hands, Soldier, Use

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.25, Penguin

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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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• There is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter.

  John Steinbeck

  Fall, Littles, Crash

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.21, Penguin

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