Quotes from beecher henry ward xii

How many there are that spend their lives in the midst of all the pleasing trifles of that vast museum of curiosities which are labeled religious, and think themselves Christians!

The fugitive, brief, though intense satisfactions that come to the nerves through the appetite and passions are not the foundations of joy in this world: they come with a moment's flash, and are disastrous in their flight.

The great men of earth are the shadowy men, who, having lived and died, now live again and forever through their undying thoughts.

We go to the grave of a friend, saying, "A man is dead;" but angels throng about him, saying, "A man is born."

A man in old age is like a sword in a shop window. Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed.

To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself.

A man that puts himself on the ground of moral principle, if the whole world be against him, is mightier than all of them.

Adversity is the mint in which God stamps upon man his image and superscription.

All true conflict should aim at peace.

It is not desirable that we should live as in the constant atmosphere and presence of death; that would unfit us for life; but it is well for us, now and then, to talk with death as friend talketh with friend, and to bathe in the strange seas, and to anticipate the experiences of that land to which it will lead us. These forethinkings are meant, not to make us discontented with life, but to bring us back with more strength, and a nobler purpose in living.

Many men carry their religion as a church carries its bell--high up in a belfry, to ring out on sacred days, to strike for funerals, or to chime for weddings. All the rest of the time it hangs high above reach--voiceless, silent, dead.

Men who stand on any other foundation than the rock Christ Jesus are like birds that build in trees by the side of rivers. The bird sings in the branches, and the river sings below, but all the while the waters are undermining the soil about the roots, till, in some unsuspected hour, the tree falls with a crash into the stream; and then its nest is sunk, its home is gone, and the bird is a wanderer.

Sorrows are gardeners: they plant flowers along waste places, and teach vines to cover barren heaps.

The most hateful evil in the world is the evil that dresses itself in such a way that men cannot hate it. The men that make wickedness beautiful are the most utterly to be hated.

We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if there is a God, he is in heaven, and not on earth.

What are called "fanatics" and "extremists" are only the men that God sends to make up the general average which the unfaithfulness of others lowers.