Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

415 Sourced Quotes

In regard to the great mass of men, anything that breaks the realm of fear is not salutary, but dangerous; because it takes off one of the hoops that hold the barrel together in which the evil spirits are confined.

Henry Ward Beecher
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.

Henry Ward Beecher
Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.

Henry Ward Beecher
One might as well attempt to calculate mathematically the contingent forms of the tinkling bits of glass in a kaleidoscope as to look through the tube of the future and foretell its pattern.

Henry Ward Beecher
Flowers are weeds where they grow wildly and abundantly; and somewhere our rarest flowers are somebody's commonest.

Henry Ward Beecher
Many of our troubles are God dragging us, and they would end if we would stand upon our feet and go whither He would have us go.

Henry Ward Beecher
Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

Henry Ward Beecher
Loving is like music. Some instruments can go up two octaves, some four, and some all the way from black thunder to sharp lightning. As some of them are susceptible only of melody, so some hearts can sing but one song of love, while others will fun in a full choral harmony.

Henry Ward Beecher
Repentance is the turning of the soul from the way of midnight to the point of the coming sun.

Henry Ward Beecher
It takes a man to make a devil; and the fittest man for such a purpose is a snarling, waspish, red-hot, fiery creditor.

Henry Ward Beecher
We confess to a homely enthusiasm for clover - not the white clover, beloved of honey-bees - but the red clover.... We go through a field of red clover, like Solomon in a garden of spices.

Henry Ward Beecher
Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's refinement.

Henry Ward Beecher
There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the Bible and the hymn-book, but which you can cure by a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air.

Henry Ward Beecher
If we are like Christ, we shall seek, not to absorb, but to reflect the light which falls upon others, and thus we shall become pure and spotless.

Henry Ward Beecher
Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life; the lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere.

Henry Ward Beecher
Men are like trees: each one must put forth the leaf that is created in him.

Henry Ward Beecher
Whoever makes home seem to the young dearer and more happy, is a public benefactor.

Henry Ward Beecher
No cradle for an emperor's child was ever prepared with so much magnificence as this world has been made for man. But it is only his cradle.

Henry Ward Beecher
Providence is but another name for natural law. Natural law itself would go out in a minute if it were not for the divine thought that is behind it.

Henry Ward Beecher
God does not refuse to make himself known to man. He only will not do it by the symbolism of matter. He comes to us at once by the most natural course. We are in a transient state; our bodies are accidental, and God comes to us by that which is higher and truer--the intuitions of the soul.

Henry Ward Beecher
We rejoice in God since he has taught us that every thing which is true in us, is but a faint expression of what is in him. And thus all our joys become to us the echo of higher joys, and our very life is as a dream of that nobler life, to which we shall awaken when we die.

Henry Ward Beecher
The superfluous blossoms on a fruit tree are meant to symbolize the large way God loves to do pleasant things.

Henry Ward Beecher
That which distinguishes man from the brute is his power, in dealing with Nature, to milk her laws, and make them give forth their bounty.

Henry Ward Beecher
Many people are afraid to embrace religion, for fear they shall not succeed in maintaining it.

Henry Ward Beecher
While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.

Henry Ward Beecher