Henry Ward Beecher Quotes & Sayings

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

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

Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong. — Henry Ward Beecher

In America there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion. — Henry Ward Beecher

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it. — Henry Ward Beecher

The slave labors, but with no cheer-it is not the road to respectability, it will honor him with no citizens' trust, it brings no bread to his family, no grain to his garner, no leisure in after-days, no books or papers to his children. It opens no school-house door, builds no church, rears for him no factory, lays no keel, fills no bank, earns no acres. With sweat and toil and ignorance he consumes his life, to pour the earnings into channels from which he does no drink, into hands that never honor him. But perpetually rob and often torment. — Henry Ward Beecher

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth. — Henry Ward Beecher

It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else. — Henry Ward Beecher

The things required for prosperous labor, prosperous manufactures, and prosperous commerce are three. First, liberty; second, liberty; third, liberty. — Henry Ward Beecher

All our other faculties seem to have the brown touch of earth upon them, but the imagination carries the very livery of heaven, and is God's self in the soul. — Henry Ward Beecher

God never made anything else so beautiful as man. — Henry Ward Beecher

God has made sleep to be a sponge by which to rub out fatigue. A man's roots are planted in night as in a soil. — Henry Ward Beecher

There is no such thing as preaching patience into people, unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear. No man can learn patience except by going out into the hurlyburly world, and taking life just as it blows. Patience is but lying to, and riding out the gale. — Henry Ward Beecher

Think of a man in a chronic state of anger! — Henry Ward Beecher

Go on your knees before God. Bring all your idols; bring self-will, and pride, and every evil lust before Him, and give them up. Devote yourself, heart and soul, to His will; and see if you do not know of the doctrine. — Henry Ward Beecher

Some people think black is the color of heaven, and that the more they can make their faces look like midnight, the more evidence they have of grace. But God, who made the sun and the flowers, never sent me to proclaim to you such a lie as that. — Henry Ward Beecher

God puts the excess of hope in one man, in order that it may be a medicine to the man who is despondent. — Henry Ward Beecher

Men do not avail themselves of the riches of God's grace. They love to nurse their cares, and seem as uneasy without some fret as an old friar would be without his hair girdle. They are commanded to cast their cares upon the Lord, but even when they attempt it, they do not fail to catch them up again, and think it meritorious to walk burdened. — Henry Ward Beecher

You have seen a ship out on the bay, swinging with the tide, and seeming as if it would follow it; and yet it cannot, for down beneath the water it is anchored. So many a soul sways toward heaven, but cannot ascend thither, because it is anchored to some secret sin. — Henry Ward Beecher

Morality is good, and is accepted of God, as far as it goes; but the difficulty is, it does not go far enough. — Henry Ward Beecher

Morality is character and conduct such as is required by the circle or community in which the man's life happens to be placed. It shows how much good men require of us. — Henry Ward Beecher

He that would look with contempt on the pursuits of the farmer, is not worthy the name of a man. — Henry Ward Beecher

No people are so easy to govern as the intelligent, and none are so hard to govern as the ignorant. — Henry Ward Beecher

God's men are better than the devil's men, and they ought to act as though they thought they were. — Henry Ward Beecher

Pain is God's midwife, that helps some virtue into existence. — Henry Ward Beecher

There is a power in the human mind ... to see things as they are ... but there is equally a power to see things as they might be. — Henry Ward Beecher

We may cover a multitude of sins with the white robe of charity. — Henry Ward Beecher

There's not much practical Christianity in the man who lives on better terms with angels and seraphs than with his children, servants and neighbours. — Henry Ward Beecher

If there be any one whose power is in beauty, in purity, in goodness, it is a woman. — Henry Ward Beecher

The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success. — Henry Ward Beecher

Some people are proud of their humility. — Henry Ward Beecher

The mere wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells are to horses-not expected to draw the load, but only to jingle while the horses draw. — Henry Ward Beecher

The monkey is an organized sarcasm upon the human race. — Henry Ward Beecher

The more sincere we are in our belief, as a rule, the less demonstrative we are. — Henry Ward Beecher

Where all of the man is what property he owns, it does not take long to annihilate him. — Henry Ward Beecher

Vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of success of any sort. — Henry Ward Beecher

Religion, in one sense, is a life of self-denial, just as husbandry, in one sense, is a work of death. — Henry Ward Beecher

I used to think the Lord's Prayer was a short prayer; but as I live longer, and see more of life, I begin to believe there is no such thing as getting through it. If a man, in praying that prayer, were to be stopped by every word until he had thoroughly prayed it, it would take him a lifetime. — Henry Ward Beecher

See that each hour's feelings, and thoughts and actions are pure and true; then your life will be also. — Henry Ward Beecher

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. — Henry Ward Beecher

The mischiefs of anarchy have been equaled by the mischiefs of government. — Henry Ward Beecher

To love I must have something I can put my arms around. — Henry Ward Beecher

Unfruitful emotion is to be suspected. Feeling acts as an impulse, as a spur, as a spring, and when feelings are excited, and they put nothing forward, they are sometimes even dangerous to a man. — Henry Ward Beecher

There is no liberty to men whose passions are stronger than their religious feelings; there is no liberty to men in whom ignorance predominates over knowledge; there is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves. — Henry Ward Beecher

No grace can save any man unless he helps himself. — Henry Ward Beecher

Find out what your temptations are, and you will find out largely what you are yourself. — Henry Ward Beecher

You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich. — Henry Ward Beecher

Now comes the mystery. — Henry Ward Beecher

Ordinarily rivers run small at the beginning, grow broader and broader as they proceed, and become widest and deepest at the point, where they enter the sea. It is such rivers that the Christian's life is like. But the life of the mere worldly man is like those rivers in Southern Africa, which, proceeding from mountain freshets, are broad and deep at the beginning, and grow narrower and more shallow as they advance. They waster themselves by soaking into the sands, and at last they die out entirely. The farther they run the less there is of them. — Henry Ward Beecher

Let parents who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to inherit riches; and before long they will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty. — Henry Ward Beecher

Love is not a possession but a growth. The heart is a lamp with just oil enough to burn for an hour, and if there be no oil to put in again its light will go out. God's grace is the oil that fills the lamp of love. — Henry Ward Beecher

Repentance is another name for aspiration. — Henry Ward Beecher

O Lord God, we pray that we may be inspired to nobleness of life in the least things. May we dignify all our daily life. May we set such a sacredness upon every part of our life, that nothing shall be trivial, nothing unimportant, and nothing dull, in the daily round. — Henry Ward Beecher

Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown. — Henry Ward Beecher

We should live and labor in our time that what came to us as a seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom, may go to them as fruit. This is what we mean by progress. — Henry Ward Beecher

You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave. — Henry Ward Beecher

Discover what you are. — Henry Ward Beecher

If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty, and for happiness, meant. Our flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. This American flag was the safeguard of liberty. It was an ordinance of liberty by the people, for the people. That it meant, that it means, and, by the blessing of God, that it shall mean to the end of time! — Henry Ward Beecher

A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind. — Henry Ward Beecher

I never know how to worship until I know how to love. — Henry Ward Beecher

Every green thing loves to die in bright colors. The vegetable cohorts march glowing out of the year in flaming dresses, as if to leave this earth were a triumph and not a sadness. It is never nature that is sad, but only we, that dare not look back on the past, and that have not its prophecy of the future in our bosoms. — Henry Ward Beecher

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself. — Henry Ward Beecher

The meanest thing in the world is the devil. — Henry Ward Beecher

It is a bitter thought to an avaricious spirit that by and by all these accumulations must be left behind. We can only carry away from this world the flavor of our good or evil deeds. — Henry Ward Beecher

Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore; So much the better, you may laugh the more. — Henry Ward Beecher

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

When young men or women are beginning life, the most important period, it is often said, is that in which their habits are formed. That is a very important period. But the period in which the ideals of the young are formed and adopted is more important still. For the ideal with which you go forward to measure things determines the nature, so far as you are concerned, of everything you meet. — Henry Ward Beecher

Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality. — Henry Ward Beecher

The common schools are the stomachs of the country in which all people that come to us are assimilated within a generation. When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox but the ox becomes a lion. — Henry Ward Beecher

Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart — Henry Ward Beecher

No man is such a conqueror, as the one that has defeated himself. — Henry Ward Beecher

I will not say it is not Christian to make beads of others faults, and tell them over every day; I say it is infernal. If you want to know how the Devil feels, you do know, if you are such an one. — Henry Ward Beecher

Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes where another feeling will not. — Henry Ward Beecher

There is nothing that is so wonderfully created as the human soul. There is something of God in it. We are infinite in the future, though we are finite in the past. — Henry Ward Beecher

Suffering well borne is better than suffering removed. — Henry Ward Beecher

The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own consciences. — Henry Ward Beecher

The gravest events dawn with no more noise than the morning star makes in rising. All great developments complete themselves in the world and modestly wait in silence, praising themselves never, and announcing themselves not at all. We must be sensitive, and sensible, if we would see the beginnings and endings of great things. That is our part. — Henry Ward Beecher

Take all the robes of all the good judges that have ever lived on the face of the earth, and they would not be large enough to cover the iniquity of one corrupt judge. — Henry Ward Beecher

I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent. — Henry Ward Beecher

Intelligence increases mere physical ability one half. The use of the head abridges the labor of the hands. — Henry Ward Beecher

No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on the proper occasions.
Henry Ward Beecher — Henry Ward Beecher

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road. — Henry Ward Beecher

Our life is in the loom; it rolls up and is hidden as fast as it is woven. It is to be taken out of the loom only when we leave this world; then only shall we see the pattern. — Henry Ward Beecher

There are apartments in the soul which have a glorious outlook; from whose windows you can see across the river of death, and into the shining city beyond; but how often are these neglected for the lower ones, which have earthward-looking windows. — Henry Ward Beecher

John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much for man. — Henry Ward Beecher

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress. — Henry Ward Beecher

Education will not come of itself; it will never come unless you seek it; it will not come unless you take the first steps which lead to it; but, taking these steps, every man can acquire it. — Henry Ward Beecher

The elms of New England! They are as much a part of her beauty as the columns of the Parthenon were the glory of its architecture. — Henry Ward Beecher

It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries in life. — Henry Ward Beecher

Books are the true metempsychosis,
they are the symbol and presage of immortality. The dead men are scattered, and none shall find them. Behold they are here! they do but sleep. — Henry Ward Beecher

It is the end of art to inoculate men with the love of nature. — Henry Ward Beecher

Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth. — Henry Ward Beecher

Now, men think, with regard to their conduct, that, if they were to lift themselves up gigantically and commit some crashing sin, they should never be able to hold up their heads; but they will harbor in their souls little sins, which are piercing and eating them away to inevitable ruin. — Henry Ward Beecher

Thinking cannot be clear until it has had expression-we must write, or speak, or act our thoughts, or they will remain in half torpid form. Our feelings must have expression, or they will be as clouds, which, till they descend in rain, will never bring up fruit or flowers. So it is with all the inward feelings; expression gives them development-thought is the blossom; language is the opening bud; action the fruit behind it. — Henry Ward Beecher

God planted fear in the soul as truly as he planted hope and courage. It is a kind of bell or gong, which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance on the approach of danger. It is the soul's signal for rallying. — Henry Ward Beecher

There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world. — Henry Ward Beecher

Walking humbly, you are more of a man than you were when you walked proudly. — Henry Ward Beecher

The best lessons a man ever learns are from his mistakes. It is not for want of schoolmasters that we are still ignorant. — Henry Ward Beecher

There is no part of government which cannot better suffer derangement than the ballot. If you strike the ballot with disease, it is heart disease. — Henry Ward Beecher

Nothing marks the change from the city to the country so much as the absence of grinding noises. The country is never silent. But its sounds are separate, distinct, and as it were, articulate. — Henry Ward Beecher