HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XVIII

American clergyman (1813-1887)

Poverty is very good in poems ... in maxims and in sermons, but it is very bad in practical life.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A Christianity which will not help those who are struggling from the bottom to the top of society, needs another Christ to die for it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


How many there are that spend their lives in the midst of all the pleasing trifles of that vast museum of curiosities which are labeled religious, and think themselves Christians!

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


There is no harder shield for the devil to pierce with temptation than singing with prayer.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Temptations are enemies outside the castle seeking entrance. If there be no false retainer within who holds treacherous parley, there can scarcely be even an offer.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


A babe is nothing but a bundle of possibilities.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it. The worst lies are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true.

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


Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine.

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


Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is a last year's nest, from which the bird has flown.

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


Newspapers are the schoolmasters of the common people.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Our moral faculties must be placed highest, else they can no more flourish than could a plant growing under the shade and drip of trees.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Justice is never so slender to us as when we first practice it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The religion of Jesus Christ is not ascetic, nor sour, nor gloomy, nor circumscribing. It is full of sweetness in the present and in promise.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


The fugitive, brief, though intense satisfactions that come to the nerves through the appetite and passions are not the foundations of joy in this world: they come with a moment's flash, and are disastrous in their flight.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Worry is rust upon the blade.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts