I beseech you to correct one fault - severe speech of others; never speak evil of any man, no matter what the facts may be.
Henry Ward BeecherThe cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.
Henry Ward BeecherSuccess is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown.
Henry Ward BeecherThe Bible stands alone in human literature in its elevated conception of manhood, in character and conduct.
Henry Ward BeecherDo not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near victory as when you are defeated in a good cause.
Henry Ward BeecherA dull axe never loves grindstones, but a keen workman does; and he puts his tool on them in order that it may be sharp. And men do not like grinding; but they are dull for the purposes which God designs to work out with them, and therefore He is grinding them.
Henry Ward BeecherMany will say, "I can find God without the help of the Bible, or church, or minister." Very well. Do so if you can. The Ferry Company would feel no jealousy of a man who should prefer to swim to New York. Let him do so if he is able, and we will talk about it on the other shore; but probably trying to swim would be the thing that would bring him quickest to the boat. So God would have no jealousy of a man's going to heaven without the aid of the Bible, or church, or minister; but let him try to do so, and it will be the surest way to bring him back to them for assistance.
Henry Ward BeecherA man in the right, with God on his side, is in the majority, though he be alone, for God is multitudinous above all populations of the earth.
Henry Ward BeecherBoys have their soft and gentle moods too. You would suppose by the morning racket that nothing could be more foreign to their nature than romance and vague sadness. . . . But boys have hours of great sinking and sadness, when kindness and fondness are peculiarly needful to them.
Henry Ward BeecherFlowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others are plain, honest and upright, like the broad faced sunflower and the hollyhock.
Henry Ward BeecherThe deeper men go into life, the deeper is their conviction that this life is not all. It is an unfinished symphony. A day may round out an insect's life, and a bird or a beast needs no tomorrow. Not so with him who knows that he is related to God and has felt the power of an endless life.
Henry Ward BeecherAs flowers always wear their own colors and give forth their own fragrance every day alike, so should Christians maintain their character at all times and under all circumstances.
Henry Ward BeecherThe unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward Beecher“I can forgive, but I cannot forget,” is only another way of saying, “I will not forgive.”
Henry Ward BeecherO 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 BeecherThinking is creating with God, as thinking is writing with the ready writer; and worlds are only leaves turned over in the process of composition, about his throne.
Henry Ward BeecherMemory can glean, but can never renew. It brings us joys faint as is the perfume of the flowers, faded and dried, of the summer that is gone.
Henry Ward BeecherThere 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 BeecherThe 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 BeecherExpedients are for an hour, but principles are for the ages. Just because the rains descend and winds blow, we cannot afford to build on shifting sands.
Henry Ward BeecherIntelligence increases mere physical ability one half. The use of the head abridges the labor of the hands.
Henry Ward BeecherAll the sobriety which' religion needs or requires is that which real earnestness produces.
Henry Ward BeecherEvery artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
Henry Ward BeecherThe most efficacious secular book that ever was published in America is the newspaper.
Henry Ward BeecherConceited men often seem a harmless kind of men, who, by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from the duty of respecting them at all.
Henry Ward BeecherThe Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.
Henry Ward BeecherBrethren, we are all sailing home; and by and by, when we are not thinking of it, some shadowy thing (men call it death), at midnight, will pass by, and will call us by name, and will say, "I have a message for you from home; God wants you; heaven waits for you.
Henry Ward BeecherWere one to ask me in which direction I think man strongest, I should say, his capacity to hate.
Henry Ward BeecherThe sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.
Henry Ward BeecherGod washes the eyes by tears until they can behold the invisible land where tears shall come no more. O love! O affliction! ye are the guides that show us the way through the great airy space where our loved ones walked; and, as hounds easily follow the scent before the dew be risen, so God teaches us, while yet our sorrow is wet, to follow on and find our dear ones in heaven.
Henry Ward Beecher