Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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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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A coat that is not used, the moths eat; and a Christian who is hung up so that he shall not be tempted-the moths eat him; and they have poor food at that.
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No man knows what he will do till the right temptation comes.
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A bird in a cage is not half a bird.
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Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.
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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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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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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 this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.
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Caution and conservatism are expected of old age; but when the young men of a nation are possessed of such a spirit, when they are afraid of the noise and strife caused by the applications of the truth, heaven save the land! Its funeral bell has already rung.
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A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.
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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.
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A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.
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The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.
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Nowhere on the globe do men live so well as in America, or grumble so much.
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By religion I mean perfected manhood,--the quickening of the soul by the influence of the Divine Spirit.
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Sorrows are gardeners: they plant flowers along waste places, and teach vines to cover barren heaps.
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There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.
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Some sorrows are but footprints in the snow, which the genial sun effaces, or, if it does not wholly efface, changes into dimples.
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The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.
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There is a great deal more correctness of thought respecting manhood in bodily things than in moral things. For men's ideas of manhood shape themselves as the tower and spire of cathedrals do, that stand broad at the bottom, but grow tapering as they rise, and end, far up, in the finest lines, and in an evanishing point. Where they touch the ground they are most, and where they reach to the heaven they are least.
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And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us.
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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.
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Expedients are for an hour, but principles are for the ages. Just because the rains descend and winds blow, we cannot afford to build on shifting sands.