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Of all formal things in the world, a clipped hedge is the most formal; and of all the informal things in the world, a forest tree is the most informal.
Henry Ward Beecher -
I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.
Henry Ward Beecher
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We pray for those who have ceased to pray. We pray for those that need prayer more than ever, that have fewer and fewer seasons even of thought, that grow hard with years, that are less and less troubled by sin, and that are more and more irreverent of religion. We pray for the children of Christian parents who sometimes weep at the memory of father and mother, but who never have thought of God.
Henry Ward Beecher -
You are not called to be a canary in a cage. You are called to be an eagle, and to fly sun to sun, over continents.
Henry Ward Beecher -
I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy berth. To this I replied: You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave!
Henry Ward Beecher -
There are sorrows that are not painful, but are of the nature of some acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life.
Henry Ward Beecher -
The soul is a temple; and God is silently building it by night and by day. Precious thoughts are building it; disinterested love is building it; all-penetrating faith is building it.
Henry Ward Beecher -
We may cover a multitude of sins with the white robe of charity.
Henry Ward Beecher
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The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.
Henry Ward Beecher -
Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes where another feeling will not.
Henry Ward Beecher -
The soul is often hungrier than the body and no shop can sell it food.
Henry Ward Beecher -
Socially we are woven into the fabric of society, where every man is like one thread in a piece of cloth. No single thread has a right to say, "I will stay here no longer," and draw out. No man has a right to make a hole in the well-woven fabric of society.
Henry Ward Beecher -
Sorrow makes men sincere.
Henry Ward Beecher -
A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.
Henry Ward Beecher
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The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.
Henry Ward Beecher -
I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people, who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything.
Henry Ward Beecher -
Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety,--all this rust of life, ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. It is better than emery. Every man ought to rub himself with it. A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it runs.
Henry Ward Beecher -
A bird in a cage is not half a bird.
Henry Ward Beecher -
No man is such a conqueror, as the one that has defeated himself.
Henry Ward Beecher -
And when no longer we can see Thee, may we reach out our hands, and find Thee leading us through death to immortality and glory.
Henry Ward Beecher
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True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part of religious training.
Henry Ward Beecher -
There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.
Henry Ward Beecher -
In regard to the great mass of men, anything that breaks the realm of fear is not salutary, but dangerous; because it takes off one of the hoops that hold the barrel together in which the evil spirits are confined.
Henry Ward Beecher -
Though cares and sorrows e'er must come, Though heart be rent, I know that God will give me strength, When mine is spent.
Henry Ward Beecher