Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
-
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.
-
Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.
-
In the ordinary business of life, industry can do anything which genius can do, and very many things which it cannot.
-
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.
-
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.
-
A week filled up with selfishness, and the Sabbath stuffed full of religious exercises, will make a good Pharisee, but a poor Christian. There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week. Now, God's altar stands from Sunday to Sunday, and the seventh day is no more for religion than any other. It is for rest. The whole seven are for religion, and one of them for rest.
-
Sorrows, as storms, bring down the clouds close to the earth; sorrows bring heaven down close; and they are instruments of cleansing and purifying.
-
There is no man that lives who does not need to be drilled, disciplined, and developed into something higher and nobler and better than he is by nature. Life is one prolonged birth.
-
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.
-
A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.
-
Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to be suggestions of that realm which is the home of the heart.
-
Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence.
-
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. We should live for the future, and yet should find our life in the fidelities of the present; the last is only the method of the first.
-
If you attempt to beat a man down and to get his goods for less than a fair price, you are attempting to commit burglary, as much as though you broke into his shop to take the things without paying for them.
-
There are sorrows that are not painful, but are of the nature of some acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life.
-
The diameter of each day is measured by the stretch of thought - not by the rising and setting of the sun.
-
We may cover a multitude of sins with the white robe of charity.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Though cares and sorrows e'er must come, Though heart be rent, I know that God will give me strength, When mine is spent.
-
A bird in a cage is not half a bird.
-
Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.
-
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.
-
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.