HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XV

American clergyman (1813-1887)

Faith is the realization of an invisible truth.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


When leisure is a selfish luxury, its very activity, when it stirs, is apt to be only a kind of indolence taking exercise, that it may the better digest its selfishness.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


We have the promises of God as thick as daisies in summer meadows, that death, which men most fear, shall be to us the most blessed of experiences, if we trust in him. Death is unclasping; joy, breaking out in the desert; the heart, come to its blossoming time! Do we call it dying when the bud bursts into flower?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


That which distinguishes man from the brute is his power, in dealing with Nature, to milk her laws, and make them give forth their bounty.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ, and it would be but a heap of dust.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


No man knows what he will do till the right temptation comes.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


No church can be prospered in which all the ministration comes from the pulpit.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


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


Many men carry their conscience like a drawn sword, cutting this way and that, in the world, but sheathe it, and keep it very soft and quiet, when it is turned within, thinking that a sword should not be allowed to cut its own scabbard.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Man's faults lie like reptiles--like toads, like lizards, like serpents; and what if there is over them the evening sky, lit with glory, and all aglow? Are they less reptiles and toads because all is roseate around about them?

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


It is only God who can satisfy the soul.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


If any man is rich and powerful, he comes under that law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


A man has a right to picture God according to his need, whatever it be.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


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


Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


That is the best baptism that leaves the man cleanest inside.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Next to victory, there is nothing so sweet as defeat, if only the right adversary overcomes you.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts