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Henry Ward Beecher Quotes - Page 20

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I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy berth. To this I replied: You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't

I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy berth. To this I replied: You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave!

Henry Ward Beecher
Jobs, Son, Thinking

Death is not an end. It is a new impulse.

Henry Ward Beecher
Death, Ends, Impulse
Henry Ward Beecher, William Cobbett (1830). “Advice to Young Men”

Men of dissolute lives have little incentive to look forward to the hopes and glories of immortality. A due conception of these would be incompatible with such a life.

Henry Ward Beecher
Men, Would Be, Looks

Women are a new race, recreated since the world received Christianity.

Henry Ward Beecher
Women, Race, World
HENRY WARD BEECHER (1855). “STAR PAPERS OR EXPERIENCES OF ART AND NATURE”, p.71

Like the cellar-growing vine is the Christian who lives in the darkness and bondage of fear. But let him go forth, with the liberty of God, into the light of love, and he will be like the plant in the field, healthy, robust, and joyful.

Henry Ward Beecher
Christian, Light, Healthy
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.157

It was the German schoolhouse which destroyed Napoleon III. France, since then, is making monster cannon and drilling soldiers still, but she is also building schoolhouses. As long as war is possible, anything that makes better soldiers people want.

Henry Ward Beecher
Education, War, Long

While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.

Henry Ward Beecher
Future, Heart, Men
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.44

Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul! Thou hast indeed entered into the promised land, while we are yet on the march. To us remain the rocking of the deep, the storm upon the land, days of duty and nights of watching; but thou are sphered high above all darkness and fear, beyond all sorrow and weariness. Rest, oh, weary heart!

Henry Ward Beecher
Heart, Night, Land

The disciples found angels at the grave of Him they loved; and we should always find them too, but that our eyes are too full of tears for seeing.

Henry Ward Beecher
Eye, Angel, Tears
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.104

The great men of earth are the shadow men, who, having lived and died, now live again and forever through their undying thoughts. Thus living, though their footfalls are heard no more, their voices are louder than the thunder, and unceasing as the flow of tides or air.

Henry Ward Beecher
Greatness, Men, Air

It is the end of art to inoculate men with the love of nature.

Henry Ward Beecher
Art, Men, Ends
Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star papers; or, Experiences of art and nature”, p.94

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

Henry Ward Beecher
Gambling, Selfishness, Essentials
Henry Ward Beecher (1871). “Lectures to young men, on various important subjects”, p.160

Experience is the mother of custom.

Henry Ward Beecher
Mother, Customs
Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

The deeper men go into life, the deeper is their conviction that this life is not all. It is an unfinished symphony. A day may round out an insect's life, and a bird or a beast needs no tomorrow. Not so with him who knows that he is related to God and has felt the power of an endless life.

Henry Ward Beecher
Life, Men, Symphony

You may say, "I wish to send this ball so as to kill the lion crouching yonder, ready to spring upon me. My wishes are all right, and I hope Providence will direct the ball." Providence won't. You must do it; and if you do not, you are a dead man.

Henry Ward Beecher
Spring, Men, Wish
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.106

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

Henry Ward Beecher
Book, Reading, Men

When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder.

Henry Ward Beecher
Children, Wonder, Pity
"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 52, 1895.

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.

Henry Ward Beecher
Education, Sweet, Reading
Henry Ward Beecher (1859). “Plain and Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers and Farming”, p.120

It is sometimes of God's mercy that men in the eager pursuit of worldly aggrandizement are baffled; for they are very like a train going down an inclined plane - putting on the brake is not pleasant, but it keeps the car on the track.

Henry Ward Beecher
Disappointment, Track, Car
"Life Thoughts, Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by One of His Congregation". Book edited by Edna Dean Proctor, 1859.

The ignorant classes are the dangerous classes.

Henry Ward Beecher
War, Class, Ignorant
Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

Nothing can compare in beauty, and wonder, and admirableness, and divinity itself, to the silent work in obscure dwellings of faithful women bringing their children to honor and virtue and piety.

Henry Ward Beecher
Beauty, Children, Dwelling
Henry Ward Beecher (1873). “The Original Plymouth Pulpit: Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn”, p.151

The aster has not wasted spring and summer because it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time can come; but their lives have not been wasted.

Henry Ward Beecher
Summer, Spring, Autumn
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.73

As ships meet at sea a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away upon the deep, so men meet in this world; and I think we should cross no man's path without hailing him, and if he needs giving him supplies.

Henry Ward Beecher
Men, Thinking, Sea
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.118

Flowers are sent to do God's work in unrevealed paths, and to diffuse influence by channels that we hardly suspect.

Henry Ward Beecher
Flower, Path, Influence
Henry Ward Beecher (1862). “Eyes and Ears”, p.381

The truest self-respect is not to think of self.

Henry Ward Beecher
Thinking, Self, Self Respect
"Life Thoughts, Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by One of His Congregation". Book edited by Edna Dean Proctor, 1859.

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