Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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Today is a goblet day. The whole heavens have been mingled with exquisite skill to a delicious flavor, and the crystal cup put to every lip. Breathing is like ethereal drinking. It is a luxury simply to exist.
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Like waves, our feelings may continue by repeating themselves, by intermittent rushes; but no emotion any more than a wave can long retain its own individual form.
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A dull axe never loves grindstones, but a keen workman does; and he puts his tool on them in order that it may be sharp. And men do not like grinding; but they are dull for the purposes which God designs to work out with them, and therefore He is grinding them.
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Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men, who, by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from the duty of respecting them at all.
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When our cup runs over, we let others drink the drops that fall, but not a drop from within the rim, and call it charity; when the crumbs are swept from our table, we think it generous to let the dogs eat them; as if that were charity which permits others to have what we cannot keep.
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Nowhere else can one find so miscellaneous, so various, an amount of knowledge as is contained in a good newspaper.
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The great lever by which to raise and save the world is the unbounded love and mercy of God.
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Truthfulness is godliness.
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Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.
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No man is good for anything who has not some particle of obstinacy to use upon occasion.
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Thorough selfishness destroys or paralyzes enjoyment. A heart made selfish by the contest for wealth is like a citadel stormed in war, utterly shattered.
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As flowers carry dewdrops, trembling on the edges of the petals, and ready to fall at the first waft of wind or brush of bird, so the heart should carry its beaded words of thanksgiving; and at the first breath of heavenly flavor, let down the shower, perfumed with the heart's gratitude.
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The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.
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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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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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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.
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We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.
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Genius is a steed too fiery for the plow or the cart.
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We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.
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It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else.
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Truths are first clouds; then rain, then harvest and food.
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The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.
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Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.
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If there's a job to be done, I always ask the busiest man in my parish to take it on and it gets done.