Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

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In the morning, we carry the world like Atlas; at noon, we stoop and bend beneath it; and at night, it crushes us flat to the ground.

Henry Ward Beecher
Learning, to be of much use, must have a tendency to spread itself among the common people.

Henry Ward Beecher
It is a view of God that compensates every thing else, and enables the soul to rest in His bosom. How, when the child in the night screams with terror, hearing sounds that it knows not of, is that child comforted and put to rest? Is it by a philosophical explanation that the sounds were made by the rats in the partition? Is it by imparting entomological knowledge? No; it is by the mother taking the child in her lap, and singing sweetly to it, and rocking it. And the child thinks nothing of the explanation, but only of the mother.

Henry Ward Beecher
A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the most joyous day of the week.

Henry Ward Beecher
Next to victory, there is nothing so sweet as defeat, if only the right adversary overcomes you.

Henry Ward Beecher
Men strengthen each other in their faults. Those who are alike associate together, repeat the things which all believe, defend and stimulate their common faults of disposition, and each one receives from the others a reflection of his own egotism.

Henry Ward Beecher
Living is death; dying is life. We are not what we appear to be. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that citizens; on this side orphans, on that children;

Henry Ward Beecher
The dog was created especially for children. He is the god of frolic.

Henry Ward Beecher
It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the deck that you know how strong or how weak it is; it is when it is put to the test.

Henry Ward Beecher
There are apartments in the soul which have a glorious out-look; from whose windows you can see across the river of death, and into the shining city beyond; but how often are these neglected for the lower ones, which have earthward-looking windows!

Henry Ward Beecher
There is no greater crime than to stand between a man and his development; to take any law or institution and put it around him like a collar, and fasten it there, so that as he grows and enlarges, he presses against it till he suffocates and dies.

Henry Ward Beecher
Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.

Henry Ward Beecher
It is not to come in any particular way, or with any particular experience, but to arise and come to your Father, and say unto Him, "Father I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son; make me as one of Thy hired servants."

Henry Ward Beecher
Today is a goblet day. The whole heavens have been mingled with exquisite skill to a delicious flavor, and the crystal cup put to every lip. Breathing is like ethereal drinking. It is a luxury simply to exist.

Henry Ward Beecher
A man without self-restraint is like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.

Henry Ward Beecher
We would walk with Thee when Thou smitest us, and we would walk with Thee when Thou smilest upon us; for, smiling or smiting, it is in love. We take chastisement because we are sons, and Thou art Father. O grant that we may never feel Thy hand as Judge! Restrain us with Thy love. Wean us from our sin, and from the love of it, and bring us back to Thine own self.

Henry Ward Beecher
If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity.

Henry Ward Beecher
Joy is more divine than sorrow, for joy is bread and sorrow is medicine.

Henry Ward Beecher
If any of you should die today, could you say to God, "Lord, here is my life work. Thou didst send me into life with a handful of seeds, and here is my heart, like a garden, full of flowers?"

Henry Ward Beecher
A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah! what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life.

Henry Ward Beecher
Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

Henry Ward Beecher
The methods by which men have met and conquered trouble, or been slain by it, are the same in every age.

Henry Ward Beecher
For four thousand years the strong had been rushing on in the road of privilege and power, seeking greatness. Christ stood in the path, and said, " Ye seek greatness. Ye are not even in the way to it. Ye are going up, but the way to greatness is down. Let him who would be great be the love-servant of all." Greatness consists in the facility and power of going down, and not in the facility of going up.

Henry Ward Beecher
There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.

Henry Ward Beecher
A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.

Henry Ward Beecher
God has made sleep to be a sponge by which to rub out fatigue. A man's roots are planted in night, as in a soil, and out of it he comes every day with fresh growth and bloom.

Henry Ward Beecher
There are many trials in life which do not seem to come from unwisdom or folly; they are silver arrows shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the quivering heart - they are meant to be borne - they were not meant, like snow or water, to melt as soon as they strike; but the moment an ill can be patiently borne it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

Henry Ward Beecher
There is no faculty of the human soul so persistent and universal as that of hatred.

Henry Ward Beecher
A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.

Henry Ward Beecher
There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs.

Henry Ward Beecher