Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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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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We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.
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We should live and labor in our time that what came to us as a seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom, may go to them as fruit. This is what we mean by progress.
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Whatever is almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is more likely to lead astray.
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The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.
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Men will imitate and admire his unmoved firmness, his inflexible conscience for the right; and yet his gentleness, as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances of this country shake out of its place: I swear you to an emulation of his justice, his moderation, and his mercy.
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It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else.
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Intelligence increases mere physical ability one half. The use of the head abridges the labor of the hands.
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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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Some of God's noblest sons, I think, will be selected from those that know how to take wealth, with all its temptations, and maintain godliness therewith. It is hard to be a saint standing in a golden niche.
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The sun does not shine for a few trees, and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine on the mountain-top waves its sombre boughs and cries, 'Thou art my sun.' And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, 'Thou art my sun.' And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, 'Thou art my sun.' So God sits effulgent in heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with childish confidence and say, 'My Father, Thou art mine.
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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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Mountains of gold would not seduce some men, yet flattery would break them down.
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Beauty may be said to be God's trademark in creation.
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Take all the robes of all the good judges that have ever lived on the face of the earth, and they would not be large enough to cover the iniquity of one corrupt judge.
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A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.
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What we call wisdom is the result of all the wisdom of past ages. Our best institutions are like young trees growing upon the roots of the old trunks that have crumbled away.
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Nowhere on the globe do men live so well as in America, or grumble so much.
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Wherever you have seen God pass, mark that spot, and go and sit in that window again.
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A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?
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Reading is a dissuasion from immorality. Reading stands in the place of company.
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Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.
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Your greatest pleasure is that which rebounds from hearts that you have made glad.
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It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hard put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction.