Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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Self-contemplation is apt to end in self-conceit.
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As ships meet at sea a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away upon the deep, so men meet in this world; and I think we should cross no man's path without hailing him, and if he needs giving him supplies.
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He who hunts for flowers will finds flowers; and he who loves weeds will find weeds.
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Some people are so dry that you might soak them in a joke for a month and it would not get through their skins.
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Books are the true metempsychosis,--they are the symbol and presage of immortality. The dead men are scattered, and none shall find them. Behold they are here! they do but sleep.
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What if the leaves were to fall a-weeping, and say, "It will be so painful for us to be pulled from our stalks, when autumn comes?" Foolish fear! Summer goes, and autumn succeeds. The glory of death is upon the leaves; and the gentlest breeze that blows takes them softly and silently from the bough, and they float slowly down, like fiery sparks, upon the moss.
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Walking humbly, you are more of a man than you were when you walked proudly.
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What profusion is there in His work! When trees blossom there is not a single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they have so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music; and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out of His hand faster than sparks out of a mighty forge!
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There is no part of government which cannot better suffer derangement than the ballot. If you strike the ballot with disease, it is heart disease.
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No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odor to the nostrils.
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There is nothing which vanity does not desecrate.
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I never know how to worship until I know how to love; and to love I must have something that I can put my arms around, — something that, touching my heart, shall leave not the chill of ice, but the warmth of summer.
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It is the very wantonness of folly for a man to search out the frets and burdens of his calling and give his mind every day to a consideration of them. They belong to human life. They are inevitable. Brooding only gives them strength.
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God is like us to this extent, that whatever in us is good is like God.
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There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.
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The thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.
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It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Worry is rust upon the blade.
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Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.
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We cannot have right virtue without right conditions.
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It is the end of art to inoculate men with the love of nature.
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Going out into life--that is dying. Christ is the door out of life.
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All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of him but in broken and imperfect words. High above all he sits, sublimer than mountains, grander than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits, nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than lovers. His feet tread the lowest places of the earth; but his head is above all glory, and everywhere he is supreme.
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But there have been human hearts, constituted just like ours, for six thousand years. The same stars rise and set upon this globe that rose upon the plains of Shinar or along the Egyptian Nile and the same sorrows rise and set in every age.
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Be a hard master to yourself - and be lenient to everybody else.