Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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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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Mirth is the sweet wine of human life. It should be offered sparkling with zestful life unto God.
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Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it.
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There is no slave out of heaven like a loving woman; and of all loving women, there is no such slave as a mother.
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God is a being who gives everything but punishment in over measure.
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Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
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Morality must always precede and accompany religion, and yet religion is much more than morality.
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A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind.
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The dog is the god of frolic.
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If men had wings and bore black feathers, Few of them would be clever enough to be crows.
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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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No cradle for an emperor's child was ever prepared with so much magnificence as this world has been made for man. But it is only his cradle.
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A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.
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Like the cellar-growing vine is the Christian who lives in the darkness and bondage of fear. But let him go forth, with the liberty of God, into the light of love, and he will be like the plant in the field, healthy, robust, and joyful.
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Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments.
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Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude.
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God never made anything else so beautiful as 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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Love is the river of life in this world. Think not that ye know it who stand at the little tinkling rill, the first small fountain. Not until you have gone through the rocky gorges, and not lost the stream; not until you nave gone through the meadow, and the stream has widened and deepened until fleets could ride on its bosom; not until beyond the meadow you have come to the unfathomable ocean, and poured your treasures into its depths – not until then can you know what love is.
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The law is a battery, which protects all that is behind it, but sweeps with destruction all that is outside.
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It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the deck that you know how strong or how weak it is; it is when it is put to the test.
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The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes.
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If there be any one whose power is in beauty, in purity, in goodness, it is a woman.
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You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.