American clergyman (1813-1887)
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
No man ever grows to a full man's estate without the ministration of suffering.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
When a church is faithless to its duties, the real church is outside its walls, in the community.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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
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
There is no harder shield for the devil to pierce with temptation than singing with prayer.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
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
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
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
Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine.
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
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
A rule is like a mold; you pour in the wax, and when it is pressed, it comes out, and the mold is left behind.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Every time your enemy fires a curse, you must fire a blessing, and so you are to bombard back and forth with this kind of artillery. The mother grace of all the graces is Christian good-will.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
A man never has good luck who has a bad wife.
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