American clergyman (1813-1887)
Amid the discords of this life, it is blessed to think of heaven, where God draws after him an everlasting train of music; for all thoughts are harmonious and all feelings vocal, and so there is round about his feet eternal melody.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God's hand, like a sign-board, is pointing toward democracy, and saying to the nations of the earth, "This is the way: walk ye in it."
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Woman began at zero, and has through ages slowly unfolded and risen. Each age has protested against growth as unsexing woman.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
That energy which makes a child hard to manage is the energy which afterward makes him a manager of life.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God makes the life fertile by disappointments, as he makes the ground fertile by frosts.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Sin is sweet in the mouth and bitter in digestion. It lies hard on the stomach.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Some sins, like asps, always carry their sting with them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it, else the hand would cut itself which sought to drive it home upon another. The worst lies, therefore, are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
An ambition which has conscience in it will always be a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road, and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success by the most faithful and minute performances of duty.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Surely, of all things that are, snow is the most beautiful and the most feeble! Born of air-drops, less than the fallen dew, disorganized by a puff of warmth, driven everywhere by the least motion of the winds, each particle light and soft, and falling to the earth with such noiseless gentleness, that the wings of ten million times ten million makes no sound in the air, and the footfall of thrice as many makes no noise.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
It takes a man to make a devil.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Life is a plant that grows out of death.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
One might as well attempt to calculate mathematically the contingent forms of the tinkling bits of glass in a kaleidoscope as to look through the tube of the future and foretell its pattern.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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
Life Thoughts
The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There is in youth a purity of character which, when once touched and defiled, can never be restored; a fringe more delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and broken, can never be re-embroidered.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Truth is the bread of a noble manhood.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Little lies are very dangerous, because there are so many of them, and because each one of them scours upon the character as diamond-pointed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Some plants of the bitterest root have the whitest and sweetest blossoms; so the bitterest wrong has the sweetest repentance.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit