Top 915 Quotes & Sayings by Henry Ward Beecher - Page 3

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck.

There is a power in the human mind ... to see things as they are ... but there is equally a power to see things as they might be.

Fear secretes acids; but love and trust are sweet juices.

Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it.

This world is magnificent for strangers and pilgrims, but miserable for residents.

It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hard put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction.

A man in the right, with God on his side, is in the majority, though he be alone, for God is multitudinous above all populations of the earth.

A dull axe never loves grindstones, but a keen workman does; and he puts his tool on them in order that it may be sharp. And men do not like grinding; but they are dull for the purposes which God designs to work out with them, and therefore He is grinding them.

Our government is built upon the vote. But votes that are purchasable are quicksands, and a government built on them stands upon corruption and revolution.

It is not what we read, but what we remember, that makes us learned. It is not what we intend, but what we do that makes us useful. It is not a few faint wishes, but a life long struggle, that makes us valiant.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.

True elegance becomes the more so as it approaches simplicity.

If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.

Let parents who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to inherit riches; and before long they will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty.

Blessed are they who know how to shine on one's gloom with their cheer.

People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men.

There is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.

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

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." I found the following quote by Goethe that can serve as a commentary on these words. "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." "The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

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.

That was a judicious mother who said, "I obey my children for the first year of their lives, but ever after I expect them to obey me.

There was never a person who did anything worth doing that he did not receive more than he gave.

Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped.

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.

We not only live among men, but there are airy hosts, blessed spectators, sympathetic lookers-on, that see and know and appreciate our thoughts and feelings and acts.

Sorrows, as storms, bring down the clouds close to the earth; sorrows bring heaven down close; and they are instruments of cleansing and purifying.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.

Were one to ask me in which direction I think man strongest, I should say, his capacity to hate.

Your greatest pleasure is that which rebounds from hearts that you have made glad.

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.

The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.

“I can forgive, but I cannot forget,” is only another way of saying, “I will not forgive.”

There are persons so radiant, so genial, so kind, so pleasure-bearin g, that you instinctively feel in their presence that they do you good; whose coming into a room is like bringing a lamp there.

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.

Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obey them.

The blossom cannot tell what becomes of its odor, and no person can tell what becomes of his or her influence and example.

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

The diameter of each day is measured by the stretch of thought - not by the rising and setting of the sun.

Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near victory as when you are defeated in a good cause.

There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans ... and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.

A cunning man overreaches no one half as much as himself.

Affliction comes to us all, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us

The thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.

We never know the love of the parent for the child till we become parents.

Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.

If you want your neighbor to know what Christ will do for him, let the neighbor see what Christ has done for you.

Theology is but a science of applied to God. As schools change theology must necessarily change. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas of truth are not. Theology is but our ideas of truth classified and arranged.

Be a hard master to yourself - and be lenient to everybody else.

Men's best successes come after their disappointments.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness -- or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

What I spent, I had; What I kept, I lost; What I gave, I have.

Some people are proud of their humility.

True obedience is true freedom.

A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.

We need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot.

Beauty may be said to be God's trademark in creation.

Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress.

Sorrow makes men sincere.