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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• In this first testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening desolation in four years of war. It makes a blitzed Pacific island seem like an Eden. The damage is far greater than photographs can show.

  Wilfred Burchett

  War, Islands, Years

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• It gets to seem as if way back in the Garden of Eden after the fall, Adam and Eve had begged the Lord to forgive them and He, in his boundless exasperation, had said, "All right, then. Stay. Stay in the Garden. Get civilized. Procreate. Muck it up." And they did.

  Diane Arbus

  Fall, Garden, Forgiving

  Diane Arbus (2003). “Diane Arbus: revelations”, Random House (NY)

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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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• 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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• 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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• This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,--This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Wall, War

  'Richard II' (1595) act 2, sc. 1, l. 40

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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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• 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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Women may be whole oceans deeper than we are, but they are also a whole paradise better. She may have got us out of Eden, but as a compensation she makes the earth very pleasant.

  Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

  Women, Ocean, Earth

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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 royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Precious Stones, Paradise On Earth

  'Richard II' (1595) act 2, sc. 1, l. 40

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  The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.

  John Steinbeck

  Freedom, I Hate You, Mind

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

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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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