Henry Ward Beecher
We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.Collection: Wisdom
We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.Collection: Parenting
It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.Collection: Friendship
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Thanksgiving
The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.Collection: Experience
Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.Collection: Music
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.Collection: Forgiveness
We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.Collection: Future
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.Collection: Faith
The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.Collection: Mothers
Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.Collection: Inspirational
Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown.Collection: Success
The dog is the god of frolic.Collection: Pet
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.Collection: Leadership
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.Collection: Inspirational
Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.Collection: Business
Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.Collection: Great
Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.Collection: Knowledge
The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.Collection: Education
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.Collection: Power
Faith is spiritualized imagination.Collection: Faith
Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.Collection: Thankful
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.Collection: Respect
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!Collection: Thankful
A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.Collection: Thankful
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.Collection: Nature
He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.Collection: Strength
I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.Collection: Religion
A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.Collection: Power
A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.Collection: Anger
Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty.Collection: Society
Well married a person has wings, poorly married shackles.Collection: Marriage
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.Collection: Humor
Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments.Collection: Best
In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.Collection: Sad
In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.Collection: Success
God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.Collection: Forgiveness
The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.Collection: Imagination
The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.Collection: Mom
Theology is a science of mind applied to God.Collection: Science
Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.Collection: Nature
We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.Collection: Religion
There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.Collection: Friendship
Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.Collection: Smile
To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.Collection: Medical
The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.Collection: Government
Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.Collection: Friendship
What we call wisdom is the result of all the wisdom of past ages. Our best institutions are like young trees growing upon the roots of the old trunks that have crumbled away.Collection: Wisdom
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.