American clergyman (1813-1887)
Patriotism, in our day, is made to be an argument for all public wrong, and all private meanness. For the sake of country a man is told to yield every thing that makes the land honorable. For the sake of country a man must submit to every ignominy that will lead to the ruin of the state through disgrace of the citizen. There never was a man so unpatriotic as Christ was. Old Jerusalem ought to have been everything to him. The laws and institutions of his country ought to have been more to him than all the men in his country. They were not, and the Jews hated him; but the common people, like the ocean waters, moved in tides towards his heavenly attraction wherever he went.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Men's graces must get the better of their faults as a farmer's crops do of the weeds--by growth. When the corn is low, the farmer uses the plough to root up the weeds; but when it is high, and shakes its palm-like leaves in the wind, he says, "Let the corn take care of them," for the dense shadow of growing corn is as fatal to weeds as the edge of the sickle.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
It takes a man to make a devil.
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
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
We need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A man without a vote ... is like a man without a hand.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
In friendship your heart is like a bell struck every time your friend is in trouble.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Our virtues are like crystals hidden in rocks. No man shall find them by any soft ways, but by the hammer and by fire.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Life is a plant that grows out of death.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Men who neglect Christ, and try to win heaven through moralities, are like sailors at sea in a storm, who pull, some at the bowsprit and some at the mainmast, but never touch the helm.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Our life is in the loom; it rolls up and is hidden as fast as it is woven. It is to be taken out of the loom only when we leave this world; then only shall we see the pattern.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work, it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The poor man with industry is happier than the rich man in idleness.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Wickedness goes to great lengths and depths where it is not checked and restrained by the free and continuous expression of the indignation of good men.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Some men think that the globe is a sponge that God puts into their hands to squeeze for their own garden or flower-pot.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Sorrows bring us closer to God than joys.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit