HENRY WARD BEECHER QUOTES XV

American clergyman (1813-1887)

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There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church, that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Many professed Christians are like railroad station houses, and the wicked are whirled indifferently by them, and go on their way forgetting them; whereas they should be like switches, taking sinners off one track, and putting them on to another.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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When leisure is a selfish luxury, its very activity, when it stirs, is apt to be only a kind of indolence taking exercise, that it may the better digest its selfishness.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Christians! It is your duty not only to be good, but to shine; and, of all the lights which you kindle on the face, Joy will reach farthest out to sea, where troubled mariners are seeking the shore.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. If you are angry with a man, or hate him, it is not hard to go to him and stab him with words; but so to love a man that you cannot bear to see the stain of sin upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words--that is friendship. But few have such friends. Our enemies usually teach us what we are, at the point of the sword.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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A childless man is like a loose engine in a ship. A man must be bolted and screwed to the community before he can work well for its advancement; and there are no such screws and bolts as children.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world--a kind of hedgehog forgiveness, shot out like quills.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Some men want to have religion like a dark lantern, and carry it in their pocket, where nobody but themselves can get any good from it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Righteousness is as hereditary as vice, and godly men transmit moral qualities to their children, and to their children's children.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Many people keep their old sins warm while they go to try on virtue and see if they like it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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A man has a right to picture God according to his need, whatever it be.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Many people are afraid to embrace religion, for fear they shall not succeed in maintaining it.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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If any man is rich and powerful, he comes under that law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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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.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Where human life needs most sympathy, where usually it is the most barren, there it is that Christ is more likely to be found than anywhere else.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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Hope is sweet-minded and sweet-eyed. It draws pictures; it weaves fancies; it fills the future with delight.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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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.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

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