I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
Henry Ward BeecherA mother has, perhaps, the hardest earthly lot; and yet no mother worthy of the name ever gave herself thoroughly for her child who did not feel that, after all, she reaped what she had sown.
Henry Ward BeecherI 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 BeecherAll things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of Him but in broken and imperfect words.
Henry Ward BeecherIf we would have anything of benefit, we must earn it, and earning it become shrewd, inventive, ingenious, active, enterprising.
Henry Ward BeecherSome men are, in regard to ridicule, like tin-roofed buildings in regard to hail: all that hits them bounds rattling off; not a stone goes through.
Henry Ward BeecherThere is no greater crime than to stand between a man and his development; to take any law or institution and put it around him like a collar, and fasten it there, so that as he grows and enlarges, he presses against it till he suffocates and dies.
Henry Ward BeecherThere are many persons who look on Sunday as a sponge to wipe out the sins of the week
Henry Ward BeecherNothing is orderly till man takes hold of it. Everything in creation lies around loose.
Henry Ward BeecherThe commerce of the world is conducted by the strong, and usually it operates against the weak.
Henry Ward BeecherIt takes a man to make a devil; and the fittest man for such a purpose is a snarling, waspish, red-hot, fiery creditor.
Henry Ward BeecherGod wishes to exhaust all means of kindness before His hand takes hold on justice.
Henry Ward BeecherGod made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without gas.
Henry Ward BeecherThe beginnings of moral enterprises in this world are never to be measured by any apparent growth. ... At length comes the sudden ripeness and the full success, and he who is called in at the final moment deems this success his own. He is but the reaper and not the labourer. Other men sowed and tilled and he but enters into their labours.
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 BeecherA book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a mentor, a teacher, a guidepost, a counsellor.
Henry Ward BeecherSome people are so dry that you might soak them in a joke for a month and it would not get through their skins.
Henry Ward BeecherBusiness men are to be pitied who do not recognize the fact that the largest side of their secular business is benevolence. ... No man ever manages a legitimate business in this life without doing indirectly far more for other men than he is trying to do for himself.
Henry Ward BeecherEvery man carries a menagerie in himself; and, by stirring him up all around, you will find every sort of animal represented there.
Henry Ward BeecherBy religion I mean perfected manhood,--the quickening of the soul by the influence of the Divine Spirit.
Henry Ward BeecherWe never know how much one loves till we know how much he is willing to endure and suffer for us; and it is the suffering element that measures love. The characters that are great must, of necessity, be characters that shall be willing, patient and strong to endure for others. To hold our nature in the willing service of another is the divine idea of manhood, of the human character.
Henry Ward BeecherThe great lever by which to raise and save the world is the unbounded love and mercy of God.
Henry Ward BeecherComing to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs.
Henry Ward BeecherA man who does not know how to be angry, does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.
Henry Ward BeecherMen strengthen each other in their faults. Those who are alike associate together, repeat the things which all believe, defend and stimulate their common faults of disposition, and each one receives from the others a reflection of his own egotism.
Henry Ward BeecherNo one thing does human life more need than a kind consideration of the faults of others. Every one sins; everyone needs forbearance. Our own imperfections should teach us to be merciful.
Henry Ward BeecherSome sorrows are but footprints in the snow, which the genial sun effaces, or, if it does not wholly efface, changes into dimples.
Henry Ward BeecherWhen a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum.
Henry Ward Beecher