Henry Ward Beecher
Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.
He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic.
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it.
The most dangerous people are the ignorant.
Now comes the mystery.
Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.
God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.
It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.
It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.
The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses 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.
Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul.
The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.
Clothes and manners do not make the man; but, when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.
I beseech you to correct one fault - severe speech of others; never speak evil of any man, no matter what the facts may be.Collection: Men
A man that has lost moral sense is like a man in battle with both of his legs shot off: he has nothing to stand on.Collection: Men
Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress.Collection: Progress
There are more quarrels smothered by just shutting your mouth, and holding it shut, than by all the wisdom in the world.Collection: World
No man can tell if he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.Collection: Heart
Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped.Collection: Wise
No one thing does human life more need than a kind consideration of the faults of others. Every one sins; everyone needs forbearance. Our own imperfections should teach us to be merciful.Collection: Imperfection
Even a liar tells a hundred truths to one lie; he has to, to make the lie good for anything.Collection: Truth
The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but, if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that.Collection: Men
The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.Collection: Fashion
It is not in the nature of true greatness to be exclusive and arrogant.Collection: Greatness
“I can forgive, but I cannot forget,” is only another way of saying, “I will not forgive.”Collection: Inspirational
The thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.Collection: Thanksgiving
I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck.Collection: Humor
The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day. It is a blessed baptism which gives the first waking thoughts into the bosom of God.Collection: Morning
Nature would be scarcely worth a puff of the empty wind if it were not that all Nature is but a temple, of which God is the brightness and the glory.Collection: Nature
The last person one wants to be is themselves. Sadly, that is the best person to be.Collection: Confidence
Riches without law are more dangerous than is poverty without lawCollection: Law
A republican government in a hundred points is weaker than an autocratic government; but in this one point it is the strongest that ever existed — it has educated a race of men that are men.Collection: Inspirational
There never was a liar that had not a spot in him where he could not help admiring truth.Collection: Liars
A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it. The worst lies are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true.Collection: Lying
If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, 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: Gratitude
Love, in this world, is like a seed taken from the tropics, and planted where the winter comes too soon; and it cannot spread itself in flower-clusters and wide-twining vines, so that the whole air is filled with the perfume thereof. But there is to be another summer for it yet. Care for the root now, and God will care for the top by and by.Collection: Love
Our earthly loves are but so many silver steps leading us up to the great golden love of God.Collection: Love
Nothing goes far which has not the wings of love to make it buoyant, so that it can fly.Collection: Love
Love is the medicine of all moral evil. By it the world is to be cured of sin.Collection: Love
There is not on earth so base a knave as the man who wins the love of a woman when he knows that he cannot or ought not to requite it.Collection: Love
Loving is like music. Some instruments can go up two octaves, some four, and some all the way from black thunder to sharp lightning. As some of them are susceptible only of melody, so some hearts can sing but one song of love, while others will fun in a full choral harmony.Collection: Love
Earthly love is a brief and penurious stream, which only flows in spring, with a long summer drought. The change from a burning desert, treeless, springless, drear, to green fields and blooming orchards in June, is slight in comparison with that from the desert of this world's affection to the garden of God, where there is perpetual, tropical luxuriance of blessed love.Collection: Love
The first merit of pictures is the effect which they can produce upon the mind; — and the first step of a sensible man should be to receive involuntary effects from them. Pleasure and inspiration first, analysis afterward.Collection: Art
Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.Collection: Hero
Customs represent the experience of mankind.Collection: Mankind
The tidal wave of God's providence is carrying liberty throughout the globe.Collection: Liberty