Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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Make men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them.
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I have known men who thought the object of conversion was to cleanse them as a garment is cleansed, and that when they are converted they were to be hung up in the Lord's wardrobe, the door of which was to be shut, so that no dust could get at them. A coat that is not used the moths eat; and a Christian who is hung up so that he shall not be tempted, the moths eat him; and they have poor food at that.
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We need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot.
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The deeper men go into life, the deeper is their conviction that this life is not all. It is an unfinished symphony. A day may round out an insect's life, and a bird or a beast needs no tomorrow. Not so with him who knows that he is related to God and has felt the power of an endless life.
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The man who perceives life only with his eye, his ear, his hand, and his tongue, is but little higher than the ox or an intelligent dog; but he who has imagination sees things around and above him, as the angels see them.
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John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much for man.
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A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.
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A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah, what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life.
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All the sobriety which' religion needs or requires is that which real earnestness produces.
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If you have only two or three things that you can enjoy and they are things which time and decay may remove from you, what are you going to do in old age?
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A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.
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May we feel after Thee; still calling out in the darkness, as children waking in the night call "Father," so may we call out for God; and, at times, even if we do not hear Thy voice, may there be the form of a hand resting upon us, and that shall be enough; for we shall take hold of it, though it be in the dark, and it shall guide us to the growing light; for the day shall come, and the release and triumph.
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There are many persons who look on Sunday as a sponge to wipe out the sins of the week.
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Home should be the center of joy, equatorial and tropical.
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Memory can glean, but can never renew. It brings us joys faint as is the perfume of the flowers, faded and dried, of the summer that is gone.
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True elegance becomes the more so as it approaches simplicity.
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The most dangerous people are the ignorant.
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Morality is character and conduct such as is required by the circle or community in which the man's life happens to be placed. It shows how much good men require of us.
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All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.
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I will not say it is not Christian to make beads of others faults, and tell them over every day; I say it is infernal. If you want to know how the Devil feels, you do know, if you are such an one.
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I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck.
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To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.
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Find out what your temptations are, and you will find out largely what you are yourself.
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What a pity flowers can utter no sound!-A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ... oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!