Henry Ward Beecher famous quotes
Last updated: Jul 22, 2024
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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 -
A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Blessed are the happiness makers. Blessed are they who know how to shine on one's gloom with their cheer.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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 -
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Men's best successes come after their disappointments.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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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 -
What a pity flowers can utter no sound!-A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ... oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
We never know how much one loves till we know how much he is willing to endure and suffer for us; and it is the suffering element that measures love. The characters that are great must, of necessity, be characters that shall be willing, patient and strong to endure for others. To hold our nature in the willing service of another is the divine idea of manhood, of the human character.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
If we would have anything of benefit, we must earn it, and earning it become shrewd, inventive, ingenious, active, enterprising.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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An oyster, that marvel of delicacy, that concentration of sapid excellence, that mouthful bwefore all other mouthfuls, who first had faith to believe it, and courage to execute? The exterior is not persuasive.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
A mother has, perhaps, the hardest earthly lot; and yet no mother worthy of the name ever gave herself thoroughly for her child who did not feel that, after all, she reaped what she had sown.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him - it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known - the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in maxims and sermons but very bad in practical life.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The human soul is God's treasury, out of which he coins unspeakable riches.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
If any man is rich and powerful he comes under the law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
That endless book, the newspaper, is our national glory.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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There are many persons who look on Sunday as a sponge to wipe out the sins of the week
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Newspapers are the schoolmasters of the common people.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
That energy which makes a child hard to manage is the energy which afterwards makes him a manager of life.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
A man without self-restraint is like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work; it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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I have known many an instance of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name, but this is the only instance I have ever known of a man signing his name and forgetting to write the letter.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
We go to the grave of a friend saying, "A man is dead," but angels throng about him saying, "A man is born."
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place in the contents. New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. Nothing ever happens twice alike. The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to surrounding objects. The most tranquil house, with the most serene inhabitants, living upon the utmost regularity of system, is yet exemplifying infinite diversities.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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 -
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Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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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 -
The greatest architect and the one most needed is hope.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Repentance is another name for aspiration.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they are going to catch you in next.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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When God thought of mother, He must have laughed with satisfaction, and framed it quickly - so rich, so deep, so divine, so full of soul, power, and beauty, was the conception.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Never forget what a person says to you when they are angry.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
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