Authors:

Henry Ward Beecher Quotes - Page 9

All Quotes Adversity Age Ambition Anger Anxiety Army Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Autumn Beauty Being Strong Belief Bible Bones Business Change Character Charity Children Christ Christianity Church Community Compassion Contentment Country Creation Criticism Culture Darkness Death Defeat Desire Devil Disappointment Discipline Dying Earth Education Evil Excellence Exercise Failure Faith Family Fashion Fear Feelings Flattery Forgiveness Friendship Funeral Funny Future Generosity Genius Giving Glory God Gold Goodness Grace Gratitude Greatness Grief Grieving Growing Up Growth Happiness Hate Health Heart Heaven History Home Honor Hope House Humility Ignorance Imagination Immortality Impulse Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Jesus Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Laughter Laziness Leadership Liberty Life Love Lying Mankind Memories Military Mom Money Morality Morning Motherhood Motivation Motivational Mountain Music Nature Pain Parenting Passion Past Pleasure Positive Poverty Power Prayer Pride Prosperity Purity Purpose Rain Reading Reality Religion Reputation Revolution Running School Science Selfishness Silence Simplicity Singing Skins Sleep Sorrow Soul Spring Strength Struggle Success Suffering Summer Sunday Sympathy Temptation Thankful Thanksgiving Theology Time Today Tolerance Truth Understanding Victory Virtue Waiting Water Wealth Wine Wisdom Work Worry Worship Writing
It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible. Do not then be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good

It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible. Do not then be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.

Henry Ward Beecher
Writing, Men, Victory

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
Success, War, Bird

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

Henry Ward Beecher
War, Character, Reality

Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it.

Henry Ward Beecher
Children, Hands, Parent
Henry Ward Beecher (1862). “Eyes and Ears”, p.78

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.

Henry Ward Beecher
Patriotic, Thoughtful, Government
Henry Ward Beecher (1887). “Patriotic Addresses in America and England from 1850 to 1885, on Slavery, the Civil War and the Development of Civil Liberty in the United States”

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
Forgiveness, Spiritual, Two
Henry Ward Beecher, Edna Dean Proctor (1860). “Life Thoughts: Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher”, p.108

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
Men, Two, Perfect
Henry Ward Beecher (1871). “The Plymouth pulpit. Sermons preached in Plymouth church, Brooklyn”, p.310

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.

Henry Ward Beecher
Failure, Men, Light
Henry Ward Beecher (1845). “Lectures to Young Men, on Various Important Subjects”, p.113

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.

Henry Ward Beecher
Culture, Helping, Social Justice

Christianity works while infidelity talks. She feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers the sick, and seeks the lost, while infidelity abuses her and babbles nonsense and profanity. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'

Henry Ward Beecher
Cheer, Clothes, Sick

It is a very good world for the purposes for which it was built; and that is all anything is good for.

Henry Ward Beecher
Purpose, World, Very Good
Henry Ward Beecher (1866). “Royal truths”, p.20

Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.

Henry Ward Beecher
War, Tolerance, Dies

It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the deck that you know how strong or how weak it is; it is when it is put to the test.

Henry Ward Beecher
Strength, Strong, Lying
Henry Ward Beecher (1866). “Royal truths”, p.111

You are not called to be a canary in a cage. You are called to be an eagle, and to fly sun to sun, over continents.

Henry Ward Beecher
Opportunity, Eagles, Sun

Next to victory, there is nothing so sweet as defeat, if only the right adversary overcomes you.

Henry Ward Beecher
Sweet, Victory, Next
Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.62

The methods by which men have met and conquered trouble, or been slain by it, are the same in every age. Some have floated on the sea, and trouble carried them on its surface as the sea carries cork. Some have sunk at once to the bottom as foundering ships sink. Some have run away from their own thoughts. Some have coiled themselves up into a stoical indifference. Some have braved the trouble, and defied it. Some have carried it as a tree does a wound, until by new wood it can overgrow and cover the old gash.

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

Love without faith is as bad as faith without love.

Henry Ward Beecher
Love, Without Love
Henry Ward Beecher (1880). “Golden Gleams: From Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Words and Works : Being a Choice Collection of Over 350 Extracts from the Latest Writings, Sermons, and Lectures of the Celebrated American Preacher and Author”

Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth.

Henry Ward Beecher
Understanding, May, Matter
Henry Ward Beecher (1872). “Lectures on preaching. 2. Author's ed”, p.251

As long as society is absolutely divided as milk is, the cream being at the top and the impoverished milk at the bottom, so long will society be unbalanced, and liable to be thrown into convulsions out of which will spring wars. A circulation throughout keeps it in health.

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

Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, and insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.

Henry Ward Beecher
Running, Attitude, War

The cynic puts all human actions into two classes - openly bad and secretly bad.

Henry Ward Beecher
Class, Two, Action
Henry Ward Beecher (1856). “Lectures to young men: on various important subjects”, p.115

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

Henry Ward Beecher
Mistake, Men, Ignorant

We only see in a lifetime a dozen faces marked with the peace of a contented spirit.

Henry Ward Beecher
Contentment, Dozen, Faces
Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

It is not merely cruelty that leads men to love war, it is excitement.

Henry Ward Beecher
Love, War, Men
Henry Ward Beecher (1873). “The Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn”, p.111

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself.

Henry Ward Beecher
Patriotic, Thoughtful, Patriotism
"Freedom and War: Discourses on Topics Suggested by the Times".

You May Also Like: