A republican government in a hundred points is weaker than an autocratic government; but in this one point it is the strongest that ever existed — it has educated a race of men that are men.
Henry Ward BeecherGreatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.
Henry Ward BeecherThe grossest, the cruelest, the most selfish, the most easily pervertible and perverted thing in this world, is government.
Henry Ward BeecherIn engineering, that only is great which achieves. It matters not what the intention is, he who in the day of battle is not victorious is not saved by his intention.
Henry Ward BeecherOrdinarily 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