Henry Ward Beecher's Quotes

There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.

Henry Ward Beecher

It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.

Henry Ward Beecher

Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.

Henry Ward Beecher

In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

Henry Ward Beecher

It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.

Henry Ward Beecher

Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown.

Henry Ward Beecher

Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.

Henry Ward Beecher

Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.

Henry Ward Beecher

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.

Henry Ward Beecher

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

Henry Ward Beecher

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.

Henry Ward Beecher

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 Beecher

God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.

Henry Ward Beecher

The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.

Henry Ward Beecher

The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.

Henry Ward Beecher

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

Henry Ward Beecher

We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

Henry Ward Beecher

I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

Henry Ward Beecher

The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.

Henry Ward Beecher

Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.

Henry Ward Beecher

We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.

Henry Ward Beecher

In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.

Henry Ward Beecher

We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.

Henry Ward Beecher

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.

Henry Ward Beecher

The dog is the god of frolic.

Henry Ward Beecher

Greatness 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 Beecher

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.

Henry Ward Beecher

He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

Henry Ward Beecher

The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history.

Henry Ward Beecher

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

Henry Ward Beecher

The 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

A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Henry Ward Beecher

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Henry Ward Beecher

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

Henry Ward Beecher

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

Henry Ward Beecher

Well married a person has wings, poorly married shackles.

Henry Ward Beecher

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

Henry Ward Beecher

What we call wisdom is the result of all the wisdom of past ages. Our best institutions are like young trees growing upon the roots of the old trunks that have crumbled away.

Henry Ward Beecher

To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice.

Henry Ward Beecher

A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.

Henry Ward Beecher

To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.

Henry Ward Beecher

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.

Henry Ward Beecher

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

Henry Ward Beecher

Faith is spiritualized imagination.

Henry Ward Beecher

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.

Henry Ward Beecher

The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.

Henry Ward Beecher

The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.

Henry Ward Beecher

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.

Henry Ward Beecher

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

Henry Ward Beecher