HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES V

American clergyman (1813-1887)

There are multitudes of persons whose idea of liberty is the right to do what they please, instead of the right of doing that which is lawful and best.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


There are men who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite against them, bemoan in the poverty of a wretched old age, the misfortunes of their lives. Luck forever ran against them, and for others; one, with a good profession, lost his luck in the river, where he idled away his time a-fishing, when he should have been in the office; another, with a good trade, perpetually burnt up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his employers to leave him; another, with a lucrative business, lost his luck by amazing diligence to everything but his business; and another, who steadily followed his trade, as steadily followed his bottle.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Twelve Lectures to Young Men


Wherever you have seen God pass, mark that spot, and go and sit in that window again.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The law is a batter, which protects all that is behind it, but sweeps with destruction all that is outside.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Men who act under dishonest passions are like men riding fierce horses: they cannot stop when they will, and they ride to ruin.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


God's nature is medicinal to ours. There are no troubles which befall our suffering hearts, for which there is not in God a remedy, if only we rise to receive it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Do not give, as many rich men do, like a hen that lays her egg and then cackles.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


As long as society is absolutely divided as milk is, the cream being at the top and the impoverished milk at the bottom, so long will society be unbalanced, and liable to be thrown into convulsions out of which will spring wars. A circulation throughout keeps it in health.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Indifference in religion is more fatal than skepticism. There is no pulse in indifference; skepticism may have warm blood.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A week filled up with selfishness, and the Sabbath stuffed full of religious exercises, will make a good Pharisee, but a poor Christian. There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week. Now, God's altar stands from Sunday to Sunday, and the seventh day is no more for religion than any other. It is for rest. The whole seven are for religion, and one of them for rest.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


When we have heartily repented of a wrong, we should let all the waves of forgetfulness roll over it, and go forward unburdened to meet the future.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Spreading Christianity abroad is sometimes an excuse for not having it at home.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Our life is but a new form of the way men have lived from the beginning.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Every man carries a menagerie in himself; and, by stirring him up all around, you will find every sort of animal represented there.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Character, like porcelain-ware, must be painted before it is glazed. There can be no change of color after it is burned in.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Some critics, and for that matter most of them, I fear, rejoice in faults as buzzards do in carrion, to feed upon it; but a true critic is a surgeon, who cuts away the wen, or imposthume, that he may rejoice in the cleanness of a body restored to health.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Public sentiment is to public officers what water is to the wheel of the mill.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit