American clergyman (1813-1887)
A man has a right to picture God according to his need, whatever it be.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if there is a God, he is in heaven, and not on earth.
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
Many yet are the secret truths of God which will be unfolded as they are needed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that take away attritions, that remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth, and the intercourse of men gentle!
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
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 whose religion is dominated by overhanging gloom or fear misrepresents religion as much as a cloudy day would misrepresent a sunshiny day, or as much as January would misrepresent June.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Religion is only another word for the right use of a man's whole self, instead of a wrong use of himself.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Men judge of Christians by taking as fair samples those that lie rotten on the ground.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
God puts the excess of hope in one man, in order that it may be a medicine to the man who is despondent.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden--swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Poverty is very good in poems ... in maxims and in sermons, but it is very bad in practical life.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The greatest architect and the one most needed is Hope.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
We rejoice in God since he has taught us that every thing which is true in us, is but a faint expression of what is in him. And thus all our joys become to us the echo of higher joys, and our very life is as a dream of that nobler life, to which we shall awaken when we die.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God gives as the wheat gives: we sow one grain, and reap a hundred.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit