Quotes from Henry Ward Beecher

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.

It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.

Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.

No man is more cheated than the selfish man.

Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.

The best lessons a man ever learns are from his mistakes. It is not for want of schoolmasters that we are still ignorant.

Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, and insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.

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

The most dangerous people are the ignorant.

True obedience is true freedom.

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.

No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.

Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.

Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.

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

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

The humblest individual exerts some influence, either for good or evil, upon others.

It usually takes 100 years to make a law, and then, after it's done its work, it usually takes 100 years to be rid of it.

A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. He that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well being of mankind.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it.

What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.

The dog is the god of frolic.