HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XVI

American clergyman (1813-1887)

Love is the wine of existence. When you have taken that, you have taken the most precious drop that there is in the cluster.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Money in the hands of one or two men is like a dungheap in a barnyard. So long as it lies in a mass, it does no good; but, if it is only spread out evenly on the land, everything will grow.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


As the cream abandons the milk from which it took its life, and rises to the top and rides there, so men, because they are richer than those around about them, separate themselves, and all mankind below them they regard as skim milk.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Poverty is very good in poems ... in maxims and in sermons, but it is very bad in practical life.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Some men want to have religion like a dark lantern, and carry it in their pocket, where nobody but themselves can get any good from it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Men judge of Christians by taking as fair samples those that lie rotten on the ground.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Righteousness is as hereditary as vice, and godly men transmit moral qualities to their children, and to their children's children.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Many men carry their conscience like a drawn sword, cutting this way and that, in the world, but sheathe it, and keep it very soft and quiet, when it is turned within, thinking that a sword should not be allowed to cut its own scabbard.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


The great men of earth are the shadowy men, who, having lived and died, now live again and forever through their undying thoughts.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


A man that has lost moral sense is like a man in battle with both of his legs shot off: he has nothing to stand on.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The Divine Being brings comfort and consolation to men. He is a God for men that are weak, and want to be strong; for men that are impure, and want to be pure; for men that are unjust, and want to be just; for men that are unloving, and want to be loving; for men that aspire to all the greatness and glory of which the soul is capable.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man whose religion is dominated by overhanging gloom or fear misrepresents religion as much as a cloudy day would misrepresent a sunshiny day, or as much as January would misrepresent June.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


If one could wallow amid filth for half a life and then wash himself clean in a day, then sin would be no worse than dirt on the hands which water can cleanse in a minute. Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Death is the Christian's vacation morning. School is out. It is time to go home.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that take away attritions, that remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth, and the intercourse of men gentle!

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Religion is the whole soul marching heavenward to the music of joy and love, with well-ranked faculties, every one of them beating time and keeping tune.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


God's whole nature moves toward the man who wants to be free from sin, as broadly and irresistibly as the summer moves from the south toward the north.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The greatest architect and the one most needed is Hope.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit