Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.
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No man can tell another his faults so as to benefit him, unless he loves him.
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No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its own individual form.
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The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a But.
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In the sacred precinct of that dwelling where the despotic woman wields the sceptre of fierce neatness, one treads as if he carried his life in his hands.
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To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.
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Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.
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A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad track-an inch between wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity.
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In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another's good, and bearing one another's burdens.
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It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Worry is rust upon the blade.
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It is defeat that turns bone to flint, gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible.
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Christianity works while infidelity talks. She feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers the sick, and seeks the lost, while infidelity abuses her and babbles nonsense and profanity. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'
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The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.
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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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Character, like porcelain-ware, must be painted before it is glazed. There can be no change of color after it is burned in.
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Many yet are the secret truths of God which will be unfolded as they are needed.
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Newspapers are the schoolmasters of the common people.
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The gravest events dawn with no more noise than the morning star makes in rising. All great developments complete themselves in the world and modestly wait in silence, praising themselves never, and announcing themselves not at all. We must be sensitive, and sensible, if we would see the beginnings and endings of great things. That is our part.
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Men think God is destroying them because he is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the string upon the musical rack.
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The highest order that was ever instituted on earth is the order of faith.
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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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I have great hope of a wicked man, slender hope of a mean one. A wicked man may be converted and become a prominent saint. A mean man ought to be converted six or seven times, one right after the other, to give him a fair start and put him on an equality with a bold, wicked man.
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The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
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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.