Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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Going out into life--that is dying. Christ is the door out of life.
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You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.
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Many men build as cathedrals are built-the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.
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He that would look with contempt on the pursuits of the farmer, is not worthy the name of a man.
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The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.
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Mirth is the sweet wine of human life. It should be offered sparkling with zestful life unto God.
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If a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. The flame is not wrong, but the coals are.
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No man rides so high and in such good company as the man that allies himself to a truth.
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You cannot play the hypocrite before God; and to obtain pardon you must cease to sin, as well as to be exercised by a spirit of repentance.
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Self-government by the whole people is the teleologic idea. The republican form of government is the noblest and the best, as it is the latest.
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Anxiety in human life is what squeaking and grinding are in machinery that is not oiled. In life, trust is the oil.
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Some men think that the globe is a sponge that God puts into their hands to squeeze for their own garden or flower-pot.
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It is defeat that turns bone to flint, gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible.
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He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
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If Christ is not divine, every impulse of the Christian world falls to a lower octave, and light and love and hope decline.
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God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.
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It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk.
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Morality must always precede and accompany religion, and yet religion is much more than morality.
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You may say, "I wish to send this ball so as to kill the lion crouching yonder, ready to spring upon me. My wishes are all right, and I hope Providence will direct the ball." Providence won't. You must do it; and if you do not, you are a dead man.
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Our yearnings are homesicknesses for heaven; our sighings are for God, just as children that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, know not that they sob for their parents. The soul's inarticulate moanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what it is that ails them.
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Your honors here may serve you for a time, as it were for an hour, but they will be of no use to you beyond this world. Nobody will have heard a word of your honors in the other life. Your glory, your shame, your ambitions, and all the treasures for which you push hard and sacrifice much will be like wreaths of smoke. For these things, which you mostly seek, and for which you spend your life only tarry with you while you are on this side of the flood.
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Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.
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The dog is the god of frolic.
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A good digestion is as truly obligatory as a good conscience; pure blood is as truly a part of mankind as a pure faith; and a well ordered skin is the first condition of that cleanliness which is next to Godliness.