Quotes by Henry Ward Beecher

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

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

The dog is the god of frolic.

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

Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place. ... New harmonies new contrasts new combinations of every sort. ... The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other to their work to surrounding objects.

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.

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

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl vigilant in darkness and blind to light mousing for vermin and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all human actions into two classes - openly bad and secretly bad.

A church debt is the devils salary.

Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.

It is defeat that turns bone to flint it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle it is defeat that makes men invincible.

Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

In things pertaining to enthusiasm no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.

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

It is defeat that turns bone to flint it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle it is defeat that makes men invincible. Do not then be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.

Failure is a school in which the truth always grows strong.

Faith is spiritualized imagination.

There is no such thing as white lies a lie is as black as a coalpit and twice as foul.

Flowers may beckon towards us but they speak toward heaven and God.

I can forgive but I cannot forget is only another way of saying I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note-torn in two and burned up so that it never can be shown against one.