HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XVI

American clergyman (1813-1887)

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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Money in the hands of one or two men is like a dungheap in a barnyard. So long as it lies in a mass, it does no good; but, if it is only spread out evenly on the land, everything will grow.

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


It is the sum of the million little unconscious dispositions that go to make life joyful or painful.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Heaven answers with us the same purpose that the tuning-fork does with musicians. Our affections, the whole orchestra of them, are apt to get below the concert-pitch; and we take heaven to tune our hearts by.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


As the cream abandons the milk from which it took its life, and rises to the top and rides there, so men, because they are richer than those around about them, separate themselves, and all mankind below them they regard as skim milk.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man that has lost moral sense is like a man in battle with both of his legs shot off: he has nothing to stand on.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


God's whole nature moves toward the man who wants to be free from sin, as broadly and irresistibly as the summer moves from the south toward the north.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Many people keep their old sins warm while they go to try on virtue and see if they like it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden--swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Men who stand on any other foundation than the rock Christ Jesus are like birds that build in trees by the side of rivers. The bird sings in the branches, and the river sings below, but all the while the waters are undermining the soil about the roots, till, in some unsuspected hour, the tree falls with a crash into the stream; and then its nest is sunk, its home is gone, and the bird is a wanderer.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Love is the wine of existence. When you have taken that, you have taken the most precious drop that there is in the cluster.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man whose religion is dominated by overhanging gloom or fear misrepresents religion as much as a cloudy day would misrepresent a sunshiny day, or as much as January would misrepresent June.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Religion is the whole soul marching heavenward to the music of joy and love, with well-ranked faculties, every one of them beating time and keeping tune.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


If one could wallow amid filth for half a life and then wash himself clean in a day, then sin would be no worse than dirt on the hands which water can cleanse in a minute. Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The greatest architect and the one most needed is Hope.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if there is a God, he is in heaven, and not on earth.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts