Top 500 Henry Ward Beecher Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “Pain is God’s midwife, that helps some virtue into existence.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

152. “He who hunts for flowers will finds flowers; and he who loves weeds will find weeds.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

153. “Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

154. “Riches without law are more dangerous than is poverty without law.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

155. “A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man, by one lower than himself.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

156. “Storms purify the atmosphere.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

157. “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.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

158. “Sorrows, as storms, bring down the clouds close to the earth; sorrows bring heaven down close; and they are instruments of cleansing and purifying.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

159. “Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

160. “A dull ax never loves grindstones.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

161. “A man’s true estate of power and riches is to be in himself; not in his dwelling or position or external relations, but in his own essential character.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

162. “A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

163. “God appoints our graces to be nurses to other men’s weaknesses.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

164. “Sometimes fear is wholesome and rational; it is well to swing fear as a mighty battle-axe over men’s heads when no other motive will move them.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

165. “Thorough selfishness destroys or paralyzes enjoyment. A heart made selfish by the contest for wealth is like a citadel stormed in war, utterly shattered.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

166. “Theology is a science of mind applied to God.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

167. “Indifference in religion is more fatal than skepticism. There is no pulse in indifference; skepticism may have warm blood.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

168. “The Bible stands alone in human literature in its elevated conception of manhood, in character and conduct.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

169. “Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A home without books is like a room without windows.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

170. “Do not be afraid because the, community teems with excitement. Silence and death are dreadful. The rush of life, the vigor of earnest men, the conflict of realities, invigorate, cleanse, and establish the truth.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

171. “When a man’s pride is subdued it’s like the sides of Mount Aetna. It was terrible during the eruption, but when that is over and the lava is turned into soil, there are vineyards and olive trees which grow up to the top.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

172. “What could make me love my fellow Christian better than to see that God loves us all as we were all one soul?”

— Henry Ward Beecher

173. “Beauty may be said to be God’s trademark in creation.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

174. “The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

175. “As warmth makes even glaciers trickle, and opens streams in the ribs of frozen mountains, so the heart knows the full flow and life of its grief only when it begins to melt and pass away.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

176. “God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

177. “It is the end of art to inoculate men with the love of nature. But those who have a psssion for nature in the natural way, need no pictures nor gallereies. Spring is their designer, and the whole year their artist.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

178. “An ambition which has conscience in it will always be a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road, and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success by the most faithful and minute performances of duty.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

179. “There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

180. “The best stock a man can invest in, is the stock of a farm; the best shares are plow shares; and the best banks are the fertile banks of a rural stream; the more these are broken the better dividends they pay.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

181. “Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life; the lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

182. “Yea, though the breath of disappointment should chill the sanguine heart, Speedily gloweth it again, warmed by the live embers of hope.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

183. “Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

184. “None love to speak so much, when the mood of speaking comes, as they who are naturally taciturn.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

185. “I read for three things; first, to know what the world has done the last twenty-four hours, and is about to do today; second, for the knowledge that I specially want in my work; and third, for what will bring my mind into a proper mood.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Firsts Quotes, Reading Quotes

186. “The elect, those who will; the non-elect, those who won’t.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

187. “A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of a man’s possessions. A library is not a luxury. It is one of the necessities of a full life.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

188. “When a nation’s young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

189. “The things required for prosperous labor, prosperous manufactures, and prosperous commerce are three. First, liberty; second, liberty; third, liberty.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

190. “A babe is nothing but a bundle of possibilities.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

191. “The world’s battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

192. “A tool is but the extension of a man’s hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

193. “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.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

194. “Of all man’s works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

195. “Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry. If he has charged you with anything, you had better look it up.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

196. “Hope is sweet-minded and sweet-eyed. It draws pictures; it weaves fancies; it fills the future with delight.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

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

— Henry Ward Beecher

198. “Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that take away attritions, that remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth, and the intercourse of men gentle!”

— Henry Ward Beecher

199. “It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work; it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

200. “No man is such a conqueror, as the one that has defeated himself.”

— Henry Ward Beecher