HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES V

American clergyman (1813-1887)

Men who act under dishonest passions are like men riding fierce horses: they cannot stop when they will, and they ride to ruin.

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


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


The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Public sentiment is to public officers what water is to the wheel of the mill.

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


Do not give, as many rich men do, like a hen that lays her egg and then cackles.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


As long as society is absolutely divided as milk is, the cream being at the top and the impoverished milk at the bottom, so long will society be unbalanced, and liable to be thrown into convulsions out of which will spring wars. A circulation throughout keeps it in health.

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


Wherever you have seen God pass, mark that spot, and go and sit in that window again.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


There is a kind of indignation excited in us when one likens our grief to his own. The soul is jealous of its experiences, and does not like pride to be humbled by the thought that they are common. For, though we know that the world groans and travails in pain, and has done so for ages, yet a groan heard by our ears is a very different thing from a groan uttered by our mouth. The sorrows of other men seem to us like clouds of rain that empty themselves in the distance, and whose long-travelling thunder comes to us mellowed and subdued; but our own troubles are like a storm bursting right overhead, and sending down its bolts upon us with direct plunge.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Every thought and feeling is a painting stroke, in the darkness, of our likeness that is to be; and our whole life is but a chamber, which we are frescoing with colors that do not appear while being laid on wet, but which will shine forth afterwards, when finished and dry.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


The mind has no kitchen to do its dirty work in while the parlor remains clean.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A week filled up with selfishness, and the Sabbath stuffed full of religious exercises, will make a good Pharisee, but a poor Christian. There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week. Now, God's altar stands from Sunday to Sunday, and the seventh day is no more for religion than any other. It is for rest. The whole seven are for religion, and one of them for rest.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


Spreading Christianity abroad is sometimes an excuse for not having it at home.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral-bell is already rung.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit