Quotes from Henry Ward Beecher

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

Free speech is to a great people what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away the germs of disease, and bring new elements of health.

Expedients are for an hour, but principles are for the ages.Just because the rains descend, and the winds blow, we cannot afford to build on the shifting sands.

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

The soul is often hungrier than the body and no shop can sell it food.

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!

It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.

Humor is, however, nearer right than any emotion we have. Humor is the atmosphere in which grace most flourishes.

There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.

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.

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.

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