Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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Genius is a steed too fiery for the plow or the cart.
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It is not desirable that we should live as in the constant atmosphere and presence of death; that would unfit us for life; but it is well for us, now and then, to talk with death as friend talketh with friend, and to bathe in the strange seas, and to anticipate the experiences of that land to which it will lead us. These forethinkings are meant, not to make us discontented with life, but to bring us back with more strength, and a nobler purpose in living.
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The methods by which men have met and conquered trouble, or been slain by it, are the same in every age. Some have floated on the sea, and trouble carried them on its surface as the sea carries cork. Some have sunk at once to the bottom as foundering ships sink. Some have run away from their own thoughts. Some have coiled themselves up into a stoical indifference. Some have braved the trouble, and defied it. Some have carried it as a tree does a wound, until by new wood it can overgrow and cover the old gash.
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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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As warmth makes even glaciers trickle, and opens streams in the ribs of frozen mountains, so the heart knows the full flow and life of its grief only when it begins to melt and pass away.
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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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Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.
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Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
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The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.
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The morbid states of health, the irritableness of disposition arising from unstrung nerves, the impatience, the crossness, the fault-finding of men, who, full of morbid influences, are unhappy themselves, and throw the cloud of their troubles like a dark shadow upon others, teach us what eminent duty there is in health.
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This world is magnificent for strangers and pilgrims, but miserable for residents.
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Laugh at your friends, And if your friends are sore; So much the better, You may laugh the more.
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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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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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It is a very good world for the purposes for which it was built; and that is all anything is good for.
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Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.
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People of too much sentiment are like fountains, whose overflow keeps a disagreeable puddle about them.
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There are persons so radiant, so genial, so kind, so pleasure-bearin g, that you instinctively feel in their presence that they do you good; whose coming into a room is like bringing a lamp there.
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Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.
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We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.
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Reading is a dissuasion from immorality. Reading stands in the place of company.
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Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
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No grace can save any man unless he helps himself.
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We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.