Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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Genius is a steed too fiery for the plow or the cart.
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God's sovereignty is not in His right hand; God's sovereignty is not in His intellect; God's sovereignty is in His love.
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Leaves die, but trees do not. They only undress.
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Make men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them.
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Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise--the head, the heart, are stuffed with goods. . . . There are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship, but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with earthy and material things.
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There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.
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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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We need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot.
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As plants take hold, not for the sake of staying, but only that they may climb higher, so it is with men. By every part of our nature we clasp things above us, one after another, not for the sake of remaining where we take hold, but that we may go higher.
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Every boy wants someone older than himself to whom he may go in moods of confidence and yearning. The neglect of this child's want by grown people . . . is a fertile source of suffering.
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The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.
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When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum.
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Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.
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Reading is a dissuasion from immorality. Reading stands in the place of company.
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Hope is sweet-minded and sweet-eyed. It draws pictures; it weaves fancies; it fills the future with delight.
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We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.
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There is no such thing as preaching patience into people, unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear. No man can learn patience except by going out into the hurlyburly world, and taking life just as it blows. Patience is but lying to, and riding out the gale.
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Prayer covers the whole of man's life. There is no thought, feeling, yearning, or desire, however low, trifling, or vulgar we may deem it, which if it affects our real interest or happiness, we may not lay before God and be sure of sympathy.
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A person can no more make money suddenly and largely, and be unharmed by it, than one could suddenly grow from a child's stature to an adult's without harm.
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Mountains of gold would not seduce some men, yet flattery would break them down.
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Some people think black is the color of heaven, and that the more they can make their faces look like midnight, the more evidence they have of grace. But God, who made the sun and the flowers, never sent me to proclaim to you such a lie as that.
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A practical, matter-of-fact man is like a wagon without springs: every single pebble on the road jolts him; but a man with imagination has springs that break the jar and jolt.
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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.
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All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of Him but in broken and imperfect words.