Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
-
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.
-
The dog is the god of frolic.
-
Boys have their soft and gentle moods too. You would suppose by the morning racket that nothing could be more foreign to their nature than romance and vague sadness. . . . But boys have hours of great sinking and sadness, when kindness and fondness are peculiarly needful to them.
-
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.
-
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.
-
To do good work a man should no doubt be industrious. To do great work he must certainly be idle a well.
-
That which distinguishes man from the brute is his power, in dealing with Nature, to milk her laws, and make them give forth their bounty.
-
Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near victory as when you are defeated in a good cause.
-
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.
-
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.
-
If there be any one whose power is in beauty, in purity, in goodness, it is a woman.
-
Religion, in one sense, is a life of self-denial, just as husbandry, in one sense, is a work of death.
-
Our government is built upon the vote. But votes that are purchasable are quicksands, and a government built on them stands upon corruption and revolution.
-
Perverted pride is a great misfortune in men; but pride in its original function, for which God created it, is indispensable to a proper manhood.
-
Oftentimes great and open temptations are the most harmless because they come with banners flying and bands playing and all the munitions of war in full view, so that we know we are in the midst of enemies that mean us damage, and we get ready to meet and resist them. Our peculiar dangers are those that surprise us and work treachery in our fort.
-
The highest order that was ever instituted on earth is the order of faith.
-
Mirth is the sweet wine of human life. It should be offered sparkling with zestful life unto God.
-
Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.
-
A man has no more religion than he acts out in his life.
-
We know that the gifts which men have do not come from the schools. If a man is a plain, literal, factual man, you can make a great deal more of him in his own line by education than without education, just as you can make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it than if you do not; but no cultivation in this world will ever make an apple out of a potato.
-
Theology is a science of mind applied to God.
-
The church is no more religion than the masonry of the aqueduct is the water that flows through it.
-
God sends experience to paint men's portraits.
-
The bibliophile is the master of his books, the bibliomaniac their slave.