Famous Henry Ward Beecher Quotations

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"It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The dog is the god of frolic."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The humblest individual exerts some influence, either for good or evil, upon others."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The most dangerous people are the ignorant."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The strength of a man consists in finding out the way God is going, and going that way."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"There is no faculty of the human soul so persistent and universal as that of hatred."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Work is not a curse, but drudgery is!"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without gas."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"God appoints our graces to be nurses to other men's weaknesses."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Mirth is the sweet wine of human life. It should be offered sparkling with zestful life unto God."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Never forget what a person says to you when they are angry."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place in the contents. New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. Nothing ever happens twice alike. The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to surrounding objects. The most tranquil house, with the most serene inhabitants, living upon the utmost regularity of system, is yet exemplifying infinite diversities."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Suffering is part of the divine idea."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Love is the river of life in the world."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Now comes the mystery."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Books are not men and yet they stay alive."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A church debt is the devil's salary."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad track... an inch between wreck and smooth, rolling prosperity."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A helping word to one in trouble is like a switch in a railroad track . . . an inch between wreck and smooth, rolling prosperity."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs -- jolted by every pebble in the road."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"A reputation for good judgment, for fair dealing, for truth, and for rectitude, is itself a fortune."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"All words are pegs to hang ideas on."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Any law that takes hold of a man's daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favour of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Besides anarchy, the worst thing in this world is government."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they are going to catch you in next."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Clothes and manners do not make the man; but, when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Do not give, as many rich men do, like a hen that lays her egg and then cackles"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Fear is a kind of bell ... it is the soul's signal for rallying."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Fear secretes acids; but love and trust are sweet juices."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"God's providence is on the side of clear heads."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Happiness is not the end of life, character is"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself - and be lenient to everybody else."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people, who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people, who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"If a man cannot be a Christian in the place he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not well for a man to pray, cream; and live skim milk"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage."
by Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage"
by Henry Ward Beecher
"It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has."
by Henry Ward Beecher


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