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. The cynic puts all human actions into two classes — openly bad and secretly bad.

— Henry Ward Beecher light

Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, lead you on until you are useless; then, if the virtuous do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without a friend in the universe.

— Henry Ward Beecher passion

Humor is, however, nearer right than any emotion we have. Humor is the atmosphere in which grace most flourishes.

— Henry Ward Beecher grace

Any law that takes hold of a man’s daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

The one great poem of New England is her Sunday.

— Henry Ward Beecher poem

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

— Henry Ward Beecher men

Caution and conservatism are expected of old age; but when the young men of a nation are possessed of such a spirit, when they are afraid of the noise and strife caused by the new applications of the truth, Heaven save the land! Its funeral bell has already rung.

— Henry Ward Beecher truth

The common schools are the stomachs of the country in which all people that come to us are assimilated within a generation. When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox but the ox becomes a lion.

— Henry Ward Beecher people

There are a great many doors open; but a door must be of a man's size or it is not meant for him.

— Henry Ward Beecher man

Sunday sermon (22 June 1873), published in The Original Plymouth Pulpit : Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher Vol. IX, p. 291

— Henry Ward Beecher day

Is it not possible for truth to be so large that ten men shall believe it differently, and yet each one of them so sectionally believe it, that they shall be all true though none of them has more than partial truth, and that all of them shall compass the whole truth?

— Henry Ward Beecher truth

The Scriptures make the test of believing to lie in the life and in the disposition. They nowhere require men, as the condition of acceptance and salvation, to be technically and philosophically right on all points of belief; but they do require that a man, in the presence of truth, using it as he pleases, selecting it according to the analysis and attractions and repulsions of his own nature, should live right. They hold men accountable for the development of their manhood on the pattern of Christ . They say, "Here are the truths of God; sort them, use them, every man according to his own liberty, in the spirit, and not in the letter." You are called to liberty; but it is that every one of you may become men in Christ Jesus. Men are held accountable for manhood, but not for the way in which they use the instruments by which the manhood is produced.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

Sunday sermon (19 January 1873), published in The Original Plymouth Pulpit : Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher Vol. IX, p. 357

— Henry Ward Beecher day

Quotes reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert

— Henry Ward Beecher kiss

The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.

— Henry Ward Beecher art

There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.

— Henry Ward Beecher men

If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity.

— Henry Ward Beecher love

Like the cellar-growing vine is the Christian who lives in the darkness and bondage of fear. But let him go forth, with the liberty of God, into the light of love, and he will be like the plant in the field, healthy, robust, and joyful.

— Henry Ward Beecher love

Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence, — as a compliment from God.

— Henry Ward Beecher men

Christ is the ideal of what a man should be. He has my ideal portrait, as it were, drawn out in His own thought and feeling. There is an exaltation and a grandeur for myself in the time to come, which Christ knows, and I do not; but I am following after. I am pressing up toward that thought that Christ has of what I am and ought to be; and I am determined that I will apprehend it as Christ Himself does. Not that I have it; but I will strive for it. My manhood is in the future. My life lies beyond the present.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

Live for the other life. Endure as seeing Him who is invisible. Work by faith; work by hope; work by love; work by courage; work by trust; work by the sweet side of your mind; and so be like Christ, until you dwell with Him.

— Henry Ward Beecher love

Whoever lives a noble life for Christ and God — he is one of God's workmen, working on that building of which God is the supreme Architect.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

It is not to come in any particular way, or with any particular experience, but to arise and come to your Father, and say unto Him, "Father I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son; make me as one of Thy hired servants."

— Henry Ward Beecher art

Thou, Everlasting Strength, hast set Thyself forth to bear our burdens. May we bear Thy cross, and bearing that, find there is nothing else to bear; and touching that cross, find that instead of taking away our strength, it adds thereto. Give us faith for darkness, for trouble, for sorrow, for bereavement, for disappointment; give us a faith that will abide though the earth itself should pass away — a faith for living, a faith for tying.

— Henry Ward Beecher faith

We would walk with Thee when Thou smitest us, and we would walk with Thee when Thou smilest upon us; for, smiling or smiting, it is in love. We take chastisement because we are sons, and Thou art Father. O grant that we may never feel Thy hand as Judge! Restrain us with Thy love. Wean us from our sin, and from the love of it, and bring us back to Thine own self.

— Henry Ward Beecher love

And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us.

— Henry Ward Beecher power

May we grow more and more like God and heaven, more gracious, helpful, and sweet-minded; and when at last Thou hast served Thyself by us, may we fall asleep in , and find it no sleep, but everlasting waking in Jesus.

— Henry Ward Beecher mind

Our yearnings are homesicknesses for heaven; our sighings are for God, just as children that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, know not that they sob for their parents. The soul's inarticulate moanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what it is that ails them.

— Henry Ward Beecher art

The whole of the Saviour's ministerial life, at least the part of it that stands on record, was passed in what we may call substantially a revival work.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah! what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.

— Henry Ward Beecher men

May we feel after Thee; still calling out in the darkness, as children waking in the night call "Father," so may we call out for God; and, at times, even if we do not hear Thy voice, may there be the form of a hand resting upon us, and that shall be enough; for we shall take hold of it, though it be in the dark, and it shall guide us to the growing light; for the day shall come, and the release and triumph.

— Henry Ward Beecher time

It is a view of God that compensates every thing else, and enables the soul to rest in His bosom. How, when the child in the night screams with terror, hearing sounds that it knows not of, is that child comforted and put to rest? Is it by a philosophical explanation that the sounds were made by the rats in the partition? Is it by imparting entomological knowledge? No; it is by the mother taking the child in her lap, and singing sweetly to it, and rocking it. And the child thinks nothing of the explanation, but only of the mother.

— Henry Ward Beecher knowledge

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

— Henry Ward Beecher love

Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.

— Henry Ward Beecher art

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

— Henry Ward Beecher soul

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

— Henry Ward Beecher happiness

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 art

It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

— Henry Ward Beecher art

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.

— Henry Ward Beecher humor

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

— Henry Ward Beecher art

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

— Henry Ward Beecher self

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.

— Henry Ward Beecher success

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

— Henry Ward Beecher light

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

— Henry Ward Beecher art

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

— Henry Ward Beecher art

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.

— Henry Ward Beecher joy

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.

— Henry Ward Beecher war

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.

— Henry Ward Beecher life

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

— Henry Ward Beecher faith

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

— Henry Ward Beecher trials

Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.

— Henry Ward Beecher art

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

— Henry Ward Beecher self

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 man

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

— Henry Ward Beecher mind

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expect of you.

— Henry Ward Beecher self

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong wont.

— Henry Ward Beecher perseverance

Every charitable act is a stepping stone towards heaven.

— Henry Ward Beecher war

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