HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XV

American clergyman (1813-1887)

No man knows what he will do till the right temptation comes.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


It is only God who can satisfy the soul.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the deck that you know how strong or how weak it is; it is when it is put to the test.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man has a right to picture God according to his need, whatever it be.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The fugitive, brief, though intense satisfactions that come to the nerves through the appetite and passions are not the foundations of joy in this world: they come with a moment's flash, and are disastrous in their flight.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The Divine Being brings comfort and consolation to men. He is a God for men that are weak, and want to be strong; for men that are impure, and want to be pure; for men that are unjust, and want to be just; for men that are unloving, and want to be loving; for men that aspire to all the greatness and glory of which the soul is capable.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


That which distinguishes man from the brute is his power, in dealing with Nature, to milk her laws, and make them give forth their bounty.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Some men want to have religion like a dark lantern, and carry it in their pocket, where nobody but themselves can get any good from it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Man's faults lie like reptiles--like toads, like lizards, like serpents; and what if there is over them the evening sky, lit with glory, and all aglow? Are they less reptiles and toads because all is roseate around about them?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Love, in this world, is like a seed taken from the tropics, and planted where the winter comes too soon; and it cannot spread itself in flower-clusters and wide-twining vines, so that the whole air is filled with the perfume thereof. But there is to be another summer for it yet. Care for the root now, and God will care for the top by and by.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Life is full of amusement to an amusing man.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another's good, and bearing one another's burdens.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


When leisure is a selfish luxury, its very activity, when it stirs, is apt to be only a kind of indolence taking exercise, that it may the better digest its selfishness.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts