HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XVII

American clergyman (1813-1887)

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


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


Men judge of Christians by taking as fair samples those that lie rotten on the ground.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Christians should be like a flower store: the odor of sanctity should betray them wherever they are.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The greatest architect and the one most needed is Hope.

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


A library is but the soul's burial ground; it is the land of shadows. Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labor, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Star Papers: Or


Men utter a vast amount of slander against their physical nature, and attempt to repair deficient virtue by maiming their animal passions. These are to be trained, guided, restrained, but never crucified or exterminated, for they are the soil in which we were planted.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Death is the Christian's vacation morning. School is out. It is time to go home.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


Troubles come to us like mire and filth; but, when mingled with the soil, they change to flower and fruit.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man in old age is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church, that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


When a church is faithless to its duties, the real church is outside its walls, in the community.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


The Church is not a gallery for the better exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that take away attritions, that remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth, and the intercourse of men gentle!

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


We are but a point, a single comma, and God is the literature of eternity.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Many people are afraid to embrace religion, for fear they shall not succeed in maintaining it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Laws and institutions are constantly tending to gravitate. Like clocks, they must be occasionally cleansed, and wound up, and set to true time.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts