HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XV

American clergyman (1813-1887)

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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

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Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it never can be shown against the man.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if there is a God, he is in heaven, and not on earth.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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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

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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry. If he has charged you with anything, you had better look it up. Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes where another feeling will not.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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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

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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

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The plainest row of books that cloth or paper ever covered is more significant of refinement than the most elaborately carved furniture.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Boys have a period of mischief as much as they have measles or chicken-pox.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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What are called "fanatics" and "extremists" are only the men that God sends to make up the general average which the unfaithfulness of others lowers.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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If one could wallow amid filth for half a life and then wash himself clean in a day, then sin would be no worse than dirt on the hands which water can cleanse in a minute. Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Selfishness at the expense of others' happiness is demonism.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that take away attritions, that remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth, and the intercourse of men gentle!

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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It is the sum of the million little unconscious dispositions that go to make life joyful or painful.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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He that lives by the sight of the eye may grow blind.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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A coat that is not used, the moths eat; and a Christian who is hung up so that he shall not be tempted--the moths eat him; and they have poor food at that.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Men utter a vast amount of slander against their physical nature, and attempt to repair deficient virtue by maiming their animal passions. These are to be trained, guided, restrained, but never crucified or exterminated, for they are the soil in which we were planted.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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