Top 500 Henry Ward Beecher Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Education Quotes, Book Quotes, Reading Quotes, Library Quotes

2. “Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Integrity Quotes, Expectations Quotes, Duty Quotes, Responsibility Quotes, Reputation Quotes

3. “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.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Being Strong Quotes, Loneliness Quotes

4. “We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Distance Quotes

5. “I can forgive but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I cannot forgive.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Forgiveness Quotes

6. “Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

7. “The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

8. “In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Giving Up Quotes, Quotes About Giving, Sacrifice Quotes, Simple Life Quotes

9. “Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Future Quotes

10. “The bibliophile is the master of his books, the bibliomaniac their slave.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Book Quotes

11. “It’s easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

12. “A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

13. “What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

14. “The thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

15. “What I spent, I had; What I kept, I lost; What I gave, I have.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

16. “The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

17. “October is the opal month of the year. It is the month of glory, of ripeness. It is the picture-month.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

18. “No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its own individual form.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

19. “Everyone has influence, for good or bad, upon others.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

20. “All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

21. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

22. “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

23. “We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

24. “Selfishness at the expense of others happiness is demonism.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

25. “Don’t look where you fall, but where you slipped.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

26. “Good-humor makes all things tolerable.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

27. “A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm – it can creep, but it cannot fly.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

28. “There are persons so radiant, so genial, so kind, so pleasure-bearin g, that you instinctively feel in their presence that they do you good; whose coming into a room is like bringing a lamp there.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

29. “October is nature’s funeral month. Nature glories in death more than in life. The month of departure is more beautiful than the month of coming – October than May. Every green thin loves to die in bright colors.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

30. “Be a hard master to yourself – and be lenient to everybody else.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

31. “If men had wings and bore black feathers, Few of them would be clever enough to be crows.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Clever Quotes

32. “The strength of a man consists in finding out the way God is going, and going that way.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

33. “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

34. “Never excuse yourself.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

35. “There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

36. “I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest who complained of bad luck.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

37. “Books are the windows through which the soul looks out.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Book Quotes

38. “God made the human body, and it is the most exquisite and wonderful organization which has come to us from the divine hand.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

39. “It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hard put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

40. “The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Summer Quotes

41. “The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

42. “Happiness is not the end of life: character is.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

43. “The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

45. “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.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

46. “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.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

47. “Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

48. “Flattery is praise insincerely given for an interested purpose.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

49. “Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”

— Henry Ward Beecher

50. “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

— Henry Ward Beecher