American clergyman (1813-1887)
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
Life Thoughts
Every thought and feeling is a painting stroke, in the darkness, of our likeness that is to be; and our whole life is but a chamber, which we are frescoing with colors that do not appear while being laid on wet, but which will shine forth afterwards, when finished and dry.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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
Spreading Christianity abroad is sometimes an excuse for not having it at home.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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
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
God makes the life fertile by disappointments, as he makes the ground fertile by frosts.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Fear secretes acids.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Beauty may be said to be God's trademark in creation.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A man's soul ought to be as the heavens were on the night when the shepherds looked up, and saw them full of angels as well as stars.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A man that does nothing but watch evil, never will overcome it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A law is valuable, not because it is a law, but because there is right in it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
You have seen a ship out on the bay, swinging with the tide, and seeming as if it would follow it; and yet it cannot, for down beneath the water it is anchored. So many a soul sways toward heaven, but cannot ascend thither, because it is anchored to some secret sin.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Wherever you have seen God pass, mark that spot, and go and sit in that window again.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There is no servant like God. No other being so humbles himself, and so bows down under weakness, and so lifts up with his strength, as God in the plenary service of Love.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There are not anywhere else so many ways of trickery, so many false lights, so many veils, so many guises, so many illusive deceits, as are practiced in every man's conscience in respect to his motives, thoughts, feelings, conduct, and character.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit