Henry Ward Beecher

We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise.

— Henry Ward Beecher

All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

— Henry Ward Beecher

If a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. The flame is not wring, but the coals are.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Never forget what a person says to you when they are angry.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The continuance and frequent fits of anger produce in the soul a propensity to be angry; which oftentimes ends in choler, bitterness, and moronity, when the mid becomes ulcerated, peevish, and querulous, and is wounded by the least occurrence.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The dog is the god of frolic.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance

— Henry Ward Beecher

Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, and insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

— Henry Ward Beecher

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Every charitable act is a stepping stone towards heaven.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

— Henry Ward Beecher

When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.

— Henry Ward Beecher

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

— Henry Ward Beecher

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

The most dangerous people are the ignorant.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may swell.

— 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

Interest works night and day in fair weather and in foul. It gnaws at a man's substance with invisible teeth.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.

— Henry Ward Beecher

It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible.

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

No man is such a conqueror, as the one that has defeated himself.

— Henry Ward Beecher

He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Education is the knowledge of how to use the whole of oneself. Many men use but one or two faculties out of the score with which they are endowed. A man is educated who knows how to make a tool of every faculty--how to open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it to all practical purposes.

— Henry Ward Beecher

In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.

— Henry Ward Beecher

There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Now comes the mystery.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Fear secretes acids; but love and trust are sweet juices.

— Henry Ward Beecher

See that each hour's feelings, and thoughts and actions are pure and true; then your life will be also.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Giving The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men.

— Henry Ward Beecher

God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.

— Henry Ward Beecher

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.

— Henry Ward Beecher

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I cannot forgive.

— Henry Ward Beecher

True obedience is true freedom.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Keep a fair-sized cemetery in your back yard, in which to bury the faults of your friends.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.

— Henry Ward Beecher

There never was a person who did anything worth doing, who did not receive more than he gave.

— Henry Ward Beecher

He who hunts for flowers will finds flowers; and he who loves weeds will find weeds.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

— Henry Ward Beecher

God appoints our graces to be nurses to other men's weaknesses.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs-jolted by every pebble in the road.

— Henry Ward Beecher

We are not to make the ideas of contentment and aspiration quarrel, for God made them fast friends. A man may aspire, and yet be quite content until it is time to raise; and both flying and resting are but parts of one contentment. The very fruit of the gospel is aspiration. It is to the heart what spring is to the earth, making every root, and bud, and bough desire to be more. -

— Henry Ward Beecher

The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.

— Henry Ward Beecher

He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The humblest individual exerts some influence, either for good or evil, upon others.

— Henry Ward Beecher

What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it.

— Henry Ward Beecher

In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A library is but the soul's burying ground. It is a land of shadows.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Love is the river of life in the world.

— Henry Ward Beecher

I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Well married a person has wings, poorly married shackles.

— Henry Ward Beecher

To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.

— Henry Ward Beecher

It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.

— Henry Ward Beecher

God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without gas.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

— Henry Ward Beecher

We never know the love of the parent till we become parents ourselves.

— Henry Ward Beecher

I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a But.

— Henry Ward Beecher

It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk.

— Henry Ward Beecher

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness -- or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

God's providence is on the side of clear heads.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Repentance is another name for aspiration.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you, never excuse yourself.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life.

— Henry Ward Beecher

In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

— Henry Ward Beecher

No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.

— Henry Ward Beecher

To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.

— Henry Ward Beecher

A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.

— Henry Ward Beecher