Quotes from beecher henry ward xiv

It makes a great deal of difference what sort of God men believe in.

Religion is the whole soul marching heavenward to the music of joy and love, with well-ranked faculties, every one of them beating time and keeping tune.

Good men's prayers are carried by the angelic mail; but many men's prayers evidently go by the demoniac route. They are never so bad as after they have prayed.

Man's faults lie like reptiles--like toads, like lizards, like serpents; and what if there is over them the evening sky, lit with glory, and all aglow? Are they less reptiles and toads because all is roseate around about them?

Temptations are enemies outside the castle seeking entrance. If there be no false retainer within who holds treacherous parley, there can scarcely be even an offer.

Many men carry their conscience like a drawn sword, cutting this way and that, in the world, but sheathe it, and keep it very soft and quiet, when it is turned within, thinking that a sword should not be allowed to cut its own scabbard.

Men often abstain from the grosser vices as too coarse and common for their appetites, while the vices which are frosted and ornamented are served up to them as delicacies.

Summer's morning wakes with a ring of birds, and everything is as distinctly cut as if it stood in heaven and not on earth.

A man that has lost moral sense is like a man in battle with both of his legs shot off: he has nothing to stand on.

That is the best baptism that leaves the man cleanest inside.

Too much looking backward ... is bad for progress.

Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine.

Righteousness is as hereditary as vice, and godly men transmit moral qualities to their children, and to their children's children.

Love, in this world, is like a seed taken from the tropics, and planted where the winter comes too soon; and it cannot spread itself in flower-clusters and wide-twining vines, so that the whole air is filled with the perfume thereof. But there is to be another summer for it yet. Care for the root now, and God will care for the top by and by.

Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it never can be shown against the man.

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. Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes where another feeling will not.