HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES V

American clergyman (1813-1887)

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


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


There is a kind of indignation excited in us when one likens our grief to his own. The soul is jealous of its experiences, and does not like pride to be humbled by the thought that they are common. For, though we know that the world groans and travails in pain, and has done so for ages, yet a groan heard by our ears is a very different thing from a groan uttered by our mouth. The sorrows of other men seem to us like clouds of rain that empty themselves in the distance, and whose long-travelling thunder comes to us mellowed and subdued; but our own troubles are like a storm bursting right overhead, and sending down its bolts upon us with direct plunge.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


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


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


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


Little lies are very dangerous, because there are so many of them, and because each one of them scours upon the character as diamond-pointed.

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


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


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


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


Men are not put into this world to be everlastingly played on by the harping fingers of joy.

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


The mind has no kitchen to do its dirty work in while the parlor remains clean.

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


Faith means a sanctified imagination, or the imagination applied to spiritual things.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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