Quotes from Henry Ward Beecher

Every man is full of music; but it is not every man that knows how to bring it out.

The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.

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

If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him - it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known - the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation that sets it forth.

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.

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

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.

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

Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it.

Our flag means all that our fathers meant in the Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of Independence meant. It means justice. It means liberty. It means happiness.... Every color means liberty. Every thread means liberty. Every star and stripe means liberty.

Love is the river of life in the world.

All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot.

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

We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.

A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore!

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

Law represents the effort of man to organize society governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty.