HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XV

American clergyman (1813-1887)

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


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


A man has a right to picture God according to his need, whatever it be.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


If any man is rich and powerful, he comes under that law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. If you are angry with a man, or hate him, it is not hard to go to him and stab him with words; but so to love a man that you cannot bear to see the stain of sin upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words--that is friendship. But few have such friends. Our enemies usually teach us what we are, at the point of the sword.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


There are many Christians who like, about once in twelve months, to have a good revival in their hearts. They think that, like the year, they can make up for freezing and snowing all winter by a period of intense heat in the summer. The remedy for such is not to chill the revivals, but to shorten the intervals between them, and to endeavor to make their life equatorial and tropical all the year round.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Summer's morning wakes with a ring of birds, and everything is as distinctly cut as if it stood in heaven and not on earth.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

attributed, Day's Collacon


Life is full of amusement to an amusing man.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ, and it would be but a heap of dust.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


When a church is faithless to its duties, the real church is outside its walls, in the community.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


A library is but the soul's burial ground; it is the land of shadows. Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labor, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Star Papers: Or


Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Many people keep their old sins warm while they go to try on virtue and see if they like it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit