American clergyman (1813-1887)
It is the duty of Christians to make religion lovely; he who makes religion unlovely is more an infidel than if he simply denied the doctrines of Christianity. He is a worm at the core, and not a worm on the leaf.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There are men who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite against them, bemoan in the poverty of a wretched old age, the misfortunes of their lives. Luck forever ran against them, and for others; one, with a good profession, lost his luck in the river, where he idled away his time a-fishing, when he should have been in the office; another, with a good trade, perpetually burnt up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his employers to leave him; another, with a lucrative business, lost his luck by amazing diligence to everything but his business; and another, who steadily followed his trade, as steadily followed his bottle.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Twelve Lectures to Young Men
Every man carries a menagerie in himself; and, by stirring him up all around, you will find every sort of animal represented there.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The soul is often hungrier than the body, and no shops can sell it food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Socially we are woven into the fabric of society, where every man is like one thread in a piece of cloth. No single thread has a right to say, "I will stay here no longer," and draw out. No man has a right to make a hole in the well-woven fabric of society.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God's nature is medicinal to ours. There are no troubles which befall our suffering hearts, for which there is not in God a remedy, if only we rise to receive it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Of all battles, there are none like the unrecorded battles of the soul.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God designed men to grow as trees grow in open pastures, full-boughed all around; but men in society grow like trees in forests, tall and spindling, the lower ones overshadowed by the higher, with only a little branching, and that at the top. They borrow of each other the power to stand; and if the forest be cleared, and one be left alone, the first wind which comes uproots it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
It takes a man to make a devil.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
No people are so easy to govern as the intelligent, and none are so hard to govern as the ignorant.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A book is a garden; a book is an orchard; a book is a storehouse; a book is a party. It is company by the way; it is a counselor; it is a multitude of counselors.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A man has no more religion than he acts out in his life.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Indifference in religion is more fatal than skepticism. There is no pulse in indifference; skepticism may have warm blood.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Character, like porcelain-ware, must be painted before it is glazed. There can be no change of color after it is burned in.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Men are not put into this world to be everlastingly played on by the harping fingers of joy.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Public sentiment is to public officers what water is to the wheel of the mill.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Nobody ever sees truth except in fragments.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The mind has no kitchen to do its dirty work in while the parlor remains clean.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
When we have heartily repented of a wrong, we should let all the waves of forgetfulness roll over it, and go forward unburdened to meet the future.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Repentance is the turning of the soul from the way of midnight to the point of the coming sun.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts