American clergyman (1813-1887)
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
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 tomorrow.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The soul is often hungrier than the body, and no shops can sell it food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The mischiefs of anarchy have been equaled by the mischiefs of government.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness, and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.
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
Some sins, like asps, always carry their sting with them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Sin is sweet in the mouth and bitter in digestion. It lies hard on the stomach.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Riches are not an end of life but an instrument of life.
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
Nobody ever sees truth except in fragments.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Blessed be the man whose work drives him. Something must drive men; and if it is wholesome industry, they have no time for a thousand torments and temptations.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A woman's pity often opens the door to love.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A man never has good luck who has a bad wife.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Twelve Lectures to Young Men
Some plants of the bitterest root have the whitest and sweetest blossoms; so the bitterest wrong has the sweetest repentance.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
One of the affecting features in a life of vice is the longing, wistful outlooks given by the wretches who struggle with unbridled passions, towards virtues which are no longer within their reach. Men in the tide of vice are sometimes like the poor creatures swept down the stream of mighty rivers, who see people safe on shore, and trees, and flowers, as they go quickly past; and all things that are desirable gleam upon them for a moment to heighten their trouble, and to aggravate their swift-coming destruction.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Little lies are very dangerous, because there are so many of them, and because each one of them scours upon the character as diamond-pointed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
An ambition which has conscience in it will always be a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road, and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success by the most faithful and minute performances of duty.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Amid the discords of this life, it is blessed to think of heaven, where God draws after him an everlasting train of music; for all thoughts are harmonious and all feelings vocal, and so there is round about his feet eternal melody.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Wealth held by a class and used ambitiously becomes as despotic as an absolute monarchy, and has in its hands manners, customs, laws, institutions, and governments themselves.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit