Best 806 quotes of Henry Ward Beecher on MyQuotes

A babe is a mother's anchor.

A babe is nothing but a bundle of possibilities.

A bird in a cage is not half a bird.

A book is a garden; A book is an orchard; A book is a storehouse; A book is a party. It is company by the way; it is a counselor; it is a multitude of counselors.

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a mentor, a teacher, a guidepost, a counsellor.

A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.

A boy is a piece of existence quite separate from all things else, and deserves separate chapters in the natural history of men.

A Christianity which will not help those who are struggling from the bottom to the top of society, needs another Christ to die for it.

A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better.

A church debt is the devil's salary.

A coat that is not used, the moths eat; and a Christian who is hung up so that he shall not be tempted-the moths eat him; and they have poor food at that.

A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.

A cup of coffee - real coffee - home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfect!

A door that seems to stand open must be of a man's size, or it is not the door that providence means for him.

A dull axe never loves grindstones, but a keen workman does; and he puts his tool on them in order that it may be sharp. And men do not like grinding; but they are dull for the purposes which God designs to work out with them, and therefore He is grinding them.

A dull ax never loves grindstones.

Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.

Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription.

Affliction comes to the believer not to make him sad, but sober; not to make him sorry, but wise. Even as the plow enriches the field so that the seed is multiplied a thousandfold, so affliction should magnify our joy and increase our spiritual harvest.

Affliction comes to us all ...not to impoverish, but to enrich us, as the plough enriches the field; to multiply our joy, as the seed, by planting, is multiplied a thousand-fold.

Affliction comes to us all, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us

A gamester, as such, is the cool, calculating, essential spirit of concentrated, avaricious selfishness.

Age and youth look upon life from the opposite ends of the telescope; it is exceedingly long,--it is exceedingly short.

A good digestion is as truly obligatory as a good conscience; pure blood is as truly a part of mankind as a pure faith; and a well ordered skin is the first condition of that cleanliness which is next to Godliness.

A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?

A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad track-an inch between wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity.

A house built on sand is, in fair weather, just as good as if builded on a rock. A cobweb is as good as the mightiest chain cable when there is no strain on it. It is trial that proves one thing weak and another strong.

A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.

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?

A library is but the soul's burying ground. It is a land of shadows.

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

A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it.

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.

A lie is a very short wick in a very small lamp. The oil of reputation is very soon sucked up and gone. And just as soon as a man is known to lie, he is like a two-foot pump in a hundred-foot well. He cannot touch bottom at all.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.

All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.

All human affairs follow nature's great analogue, the growth of vegetation. There are three periods of growth in every plant. The first, and slowest, is the invisible growth by the root; the second and much accelerated is the visible growth by the stem; but when root and stem have gathered their forces, there comes the third period, in which the plant quickly flashes into blossom and rushes into fruit.

All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot.

All our other faculties seem to have the brown touch of earth upon them, but the imagination carries the very livery of heaven, and is God's self in the soul.

All the sobriety which' religion needs or requires is that which real earnestness produces.

All the wide world is but the husbandry of God for the development of the one fruit-man.

All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of Him but in broken and imperfect words.

All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of him but in broken and imperfect words. High above all he sits, sublimer than mountains, grander than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits, nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than lovers. His feet tread the lowest places of the earth; but his head is above all glory, and everywhere he is supreme.

All true religion must stand on true morality.

All words are pegs to hang ideas on.

All work and no plagiarism makes for dull sermons!

A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and ... unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraightened, ardent piety.

A man in the right, with God on his side, is in the majority, though he be alone, for God is multitudinous above all populations of the earth.

A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah, what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life.

A man is a great bundle of tools. He is born into this life without the knowledge of how to use them. Education is the process of learning their use.