Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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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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The religion of Jesus Christ is not ascetic, nor sour, nor gloomy, nor circumscribing. It is full of sweetness in the present and in promise.
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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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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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All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
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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 imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith.
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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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The strong are God's natural protectors of the weak.
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Suffering is part of the divine idea.
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Newspapers are to the body politic what arteries are to the human body, their function being to carry blood and sustenance and repair to every part of the body.
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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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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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God is a being who gives everything but punishment in over measure.
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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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If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty, and for happiness, meant. Our flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. This American flag was the safeguard of liberty. It was an ordinance of liberty by the people, for the people. That it meant, that it means, and, by the blessing of God, that it shall mean to the end of time!
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When flowers are full of heaven-descended dews, they always hang their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more they receive, getting proud as they get full.
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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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No man can tell another his faults so as to benefit him, unless he loves him.
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If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.
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The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.
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Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?
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Mirthfulness is in the mind, and you cannot get it out. It is the blessed spirit that God has set in the mind to dust it, to enliven its dark places, and to drive asceticism, like a foul fiend, out at the back door. It is just as good, in its place, as conscience or veneration. Praying can no more be made a substitute for smiling than smiling can for praying.
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Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.