Henry Van Dyke Quotes

Paradise is too perfect for humanity.

If we were capable of thinking of everything, we would still be living in Eden, rent-free with all-you-can-eat buffets and infinitely better daytime TV programming.

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?

No man lives without fault.

He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a perfect man. Every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds; and faults of some kind nestle in every bosom.

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.

Yes, I do believe that human beings are not perfect.

I'm doing a lot of mistakes, like every human being.

I don't think anybody is perfect.

I'm only a human being. I'm not a robot.

Last time I checked, no one is perfect.

It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.

We've been expected to be perfect but we aren't. We're still human.

Eden, paradise - all the best gardens are imaginary.

The best of men are men at best

In spite of every sage whom Greece can show, Unerring wisdom never dwelt below; Folly in all of every age we see, The only difference lies in the degree.

Man started out on the wrong foot. The misadventure in paradise was the first consequence. The rest had to follow.

Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.

Humankind's chief fault is that they have so many small ones.

People are never perfect, but love can be.

Flawed, imperfect creatures! That's what we both are, oga! That's what we ALL are!

Look, we are human, we make mistakes. I will gladly shout from the rooftops that I am not perfect. Nor will I ever be.

To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature.

Perfection is only an ideal for man; it cannot be attained, for man is made imperfect.

When man tries to imagine Paradise on earth, the immediate result is a very respectable Hell.