Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

Henry Ward Beecher shares witty, plain-spoken takes on society and human nature.

38 quotes

1. Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.

2. It is not well for a man to pray, cream; and live skim milk.

3. The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all human actions into two classes - openly bad and secretly bad.

4. Humor is, however, nearer right than any emotion we have. Humor is the atmosphere in which grace most flourishes.

5. Any law that takes hold of a man's daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life.

6. The one great poem of New England is her Sunday.

7. When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.

8. The common schools are the stomachs of the country in which all people that come to us are assimilated within a generation. When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox but the ox becomes a lion.

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

10. Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money...

11. 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.

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

13. It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.

14. Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.

15. Now comes the mystery.

16. The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic.

17. The monkey is an organized sarcasm upon the human race.

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

19. What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way to the coffin.

20. Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

21. Words are pegs to hang ideas on.

22. Astronomers have built telescopes which can show myriads of stars unseen before; but when a man looks through a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches into the unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope, however skilfully constructed, could do.

23. A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it. The worst lies are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true.

24. Miracles are like candles lit up until the sun rises, and then blown out. Therefore, I am amused when I hear sects and churches talk about having evidence of Divine authority because they have miracles. Miracles in our time are like candles in the street at midday. We do not want miracles. They are to teach men how to find out truths themselves; and after they have learned this, they no more need them than a well man needs a staff, or a grown-up child needs a walking-stool.

25. Even a liar tells a hundred truths to one lie; he has to, to make the lie good for anything.

26. Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obey them.

27. Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to be suggestions of that realm which is the home of the heart.

28. In America there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion.

29. The best lessons a man ever learns are from his mistakes. It is not for want of schoolmasters that we are still ignorant.

30. I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck.

31. THERE are joys which long to be ours.

32. People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men.

33. 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.

34. Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

35. Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it.

36. Some of God's noblest sons, I think, will be selected from those that know how to take wealth, with all its temptations, and maintain godliness therewith. It is hard to be a saint standing in a golden niche.

37. You have seen a ship out on the bay, swinging with the tide, and seeming as if it would follow it; and yet it cannot, for down beneath the water it is anchored. So many a soul sways toward heaven, but cannot ascend thither, because it is anchored to some secret sin.

38. Everyone has conscience enough to hate; few have religion enough to love.