HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XII

American clergyman (1813-1887)

Spirituality without morality is rootless.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Some folks think that Christianity means a kind of insurance policy, and that it has little to do with this life, but that it is a very good thing when a man dies.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Death is the dropping of the flower, that the fruit may swell.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A coat that is not used, the moths eat; and a Christian who is hung up so that he shall not be tempted--the moths eat him; and they have poor food at that.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Selfishness at the expense of others' happiness is demonism.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man that puts himself on the ground of moral principle, if the whole world be against him, is mightier than all of them.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Christians are like vases, they must pass through the fire ere they can shine. The graces which are to be their everlasting beauty and glory must be burned in.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

Life Thoughts


Defeat is a school in which Truth always grows strong.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry. If he has charged you with anything, you had better look it up. Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes where another feeling will not.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


There is an army of waiters in this world.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The church is no more religion than the masonry of the aqueduct is the water that flows through it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ, and it would be but a heap of dust.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Sorrows are gardeners: they plant flowers along waste places, and teach vines to cover barren heaps.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Men think religion bears the same relation to life that flowers do to trees. The tree must grow through a long period before the blossoming time; so they think religion is to be a blossom just before death, to secure heaven. But the Bible represents religion, not as the latest fruit of life, but as the whole of it--beginning, middle, and end. It is simply right living.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


We have the promises of God as thick as daisies in summer meadows, that death, which men most fear, shall be to us the most blessed of experiences, if we trust in him. Death is unclasping; joy, breaking out in the desert; the heart, come to its blossoming time! Do we call it dying when the bud bursts into flower?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts