Henry Ward Beecher

The monkey is an organized Sarcasm upon the human race.

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.

Heaven answers with us the same purpose that the tuning fork does with musicians. Our affections the whole orchestra of them are apt to get below the concert pitch and we take heaven to tune our hearts by.

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

In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

The worlds battlefields have been in the heart chiefly more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet than on the most memorable battlefields in history.

A tool is but the extension of a mans hand and a machine is but a complex tool. He that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well being of mankind.

The unthankful heart discovers no mercies but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and as the magnet finds the iron so it will find in every hour some heavenly blessings

Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.

Not another flag has such an errand carrying everywhere the world around such hope for freedom such glorious tidings.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road.

A cunning man overreaches no one half as much as himself.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy today, mix good cheer with friends today enjoy it and bless God for it.

There is no faculty of the human soul so persistent and universal as that of hatred.

A mans ledger does not tell what he is or what he is worth. Count what is in man not what is on him if you would know what he is worth whether rich or poor.

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.

The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.

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.

You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.

Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.

God plants no yearning in the human soul that he does not intend to satisfy.

The human soul is God's treasury, out of which he coins unspeakable riches.

Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. Its getting money without giving an equivalent for it.

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.

I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

October is the opal month of the year. It is the month of glory, of ripeness. It is the picture-month.

The dog was created especially for children. He is the God of frolic.

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself.

There is but one resource for innocence among men or women, and that is an embargo upon all commerce of bad men.

We never know the love of the parent till we become parents ourselves.

What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.

Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.

The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

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.

God appoints our graces to be nurses to other men's weaknesses.

Pride slays thanksgiving but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Human life is Gods outer church. Its needs and urgencies are priests and pastors.

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

Gratitude is the fairest blossom that springs from the soul.

Downright admonition as a rule is too blunt for the recipient.

The fugitive brief though intense satisfactions that come to the nerves through the appetite and passions are not the foundations of joy in this world they come with a moments flash and are disastrous in their flight.

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Of all battles, there are none like the unrecorded battles of the soul.

Repentance is another name for aspiration.

In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.

To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.

The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold.

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

Young love is a flame very pretty often very hot and fierce but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals deep burning unquenchable.

The monkey is an organized sarcasm upon the human race.

All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.

Remember Gods bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts except so far as they are breaking out in light Give this one day to thanks to joy to gratitude

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

Repentance is the turning of the soul from the way of midnight to the point of the coming sun.

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. He must accept it. The only choice is how.

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.

Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook.

Faith is spiritualized imagination.

This world is magnificent for strangers and pilgrims, but miserable for residents.

There is no such thing as preaching patience into people, unless the sermon is so long that they have to practise it while they hear.

The continuance and frequent fits of anger produce in the soul a propensity to be angry which oftentimes ends in choler bitterness and moronity when the mid becomes ulcerated peevish and querulous and is wounded by the least occurrence.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else.

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

As the cream abandons the milk from which it took its life, and rises to the top and rides there, so men, because they are richer than those around about them, separate themselves, and all mankind below them they regard as skim milk.

If you want your neighbor to know what Christ will do for him let the neighbor see what Christ has done for you.

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

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

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.

We go to the grave of a friend saying A man is dead but angels throng about him saying A man is born.

Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!

Suffering well borne is better than suffering removed.

The difference between perseverance and obstinancy is that one often comes from a strong will and the other from a strong wont.

A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

There are three schoolmasters for everybody that will employ them - the senses, intelligent companions, and books.

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

Theology is but our ideas of truth classified and arranged.

Spreading Christianity abroad is sometimes an excuse for not having it at home.

Someone calls biography the home aspect of history.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but, when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.

No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they are going to catch you in next.

A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm--it can creep, but it cannot fly.

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!

The imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization.

Ones best success comes after their greatest disappointments.

Christians ought not to slander God by looking as if they were at an everlasting funeral.

Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.

Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul.

Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child.

Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time.

Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life.

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.

Do not give as many rich men do like a hen that lays her egg and then cackles.

Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it.

Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones, and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains.

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.