American clergyman (1813-1887)
To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The fugitive, brief, though intense satisfactions that come to the nerves through the appetite and passions are not the foundations of joy in this world: they come with a moment's flash, and are disastrous in their flight.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Sorrows are gardeners: they plant flowers along waste places, and teach vines to cover barren heaps.
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 in old age is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed.
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
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
There is an army of waiters in this world.
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
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
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
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
Troubles come to us like mire and filth; but, when mingled with the soil, they change to flower and fruit.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The greatest architect and the one most needed is Hope.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
Men utter a vast amount of slander against their physical nature, and attempt to repair deficient virtue by maiming their animal passions. These are to be trained, guided, restrained, but never crucified or exterminated, for they are the soil in which we were planted.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Many yet are the secret truths of God which will be unfolded as they are needed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Christians ought not to slander God by looking as if they were at an everlasting funeral.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit