Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
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It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else.
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There is no faculty of the human soul so persistent and universal as that of hatred.
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Make men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them.
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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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We need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot.
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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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The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
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I have known men who thought the object of conversion was to cleanse them as a garment is cleansed, and that when they are converted they were to be hung up in the Lord's wardrobe, the door of which was to be shut, so that no dust could get at them. 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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Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.
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Mountains of gold would not seduce some men, yet flattery would break them down.
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Grim care, moroseness, anxiety-all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. Mirth is God's medicine.
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An oyster, that marvel of delicacy, that concentration of sapid excellence, that mouthful bwefore all other mouthfuls, who first had faith to believe it, and courage to execute? The exterior is not persuasive.
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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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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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Beauty may be said to be God's trademark in creation.
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Self-contemplation is apt to end in self-conceit.
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When a man sells eleven ounces for twelve, he makes a compact with the devil, and sells himself for the value of an ounce.
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Christ is risen! There is life, therefore, after death! His resurrection is the symbol and pledge of universal resurrection!
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Reason can tell how love affects us, but cannot tell what love is.
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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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We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.
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But when we borrow trouble, and look forward into the future to see what storms are coming, and distress ourselves before they come as to how we shall avert them if they ever do come, we lose our proper trustfulness in God. When we torment ourselves with imaginary dangers, or trials, or reverses, we have already parted with that perfect love which casteth out fear.
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True elegance becomes the more so as it approaches simplicity.