Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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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.
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One might as well attempt to calculate mathematically the contingent forms of the tinkling bits of glass in a kaleidoscope as to look through the tube of the future and foretell its pattern.
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There are sorrows that are not painful, but are of the nature of some acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life.
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Sorrows, as storms, bring down the clouds close to the earth; sorrows bring heaven down close; and they are instruments of cleansing and purifying.
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A man's ledger does not tell what he is, or what he is worth. Count what is in man, not what is on him, if you would know what he is worth-whether rich or poor.
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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.
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In the ordinary business of life, industry can do anything which genius can do, and very many things which it cannot.
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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.
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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!
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Many men are stored full of unused knowledge. Like loaded guns that are never fired off, or military magazines in times of peace, they are stuffed with useless ammunition.
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If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road
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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.
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Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence.
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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.
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It is a higher exhibition of Christian manliness to be able to bear trouble than to get rid of it.
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In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.
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The common schools are the stomachs of the country in which all people that come to us are assimilated within a generation. When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox but the ox becomes a lion.
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There are apartments in the soul which have a glorious outlook; from whose windows you can see across the river of death, and into the shining city beyond; but how often are these neglected for the lower ones, which have earthward-looking windows.
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Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.
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A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.
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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.
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We may cover a multitude of sins with the white robe of charity.
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Though cares and sorrows e'er must come, Though heart be rent, I know that God will give me strength, When mine is spent.
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The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.