Quotes from Henry Ward Beecher

Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where He made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero or a saint.

To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them — the whole leaf and root tribe.

Besides anarchy, the worst thing in this world is government.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance

Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

Fear secretes acids; but love and trust are sweet juices.

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

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself - and be lenient to everybody else.

Never forget what a person says to you when they are angry.

Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place in the contents. New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. Nothing ever happens twice alike. The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to surrounding objects. The most tranquil house, with the most serene inhabitants, living upon the utmost regularity of system, is yet exemplifying infinite diversities.

Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to point us to that realm which is the real and endless home of the heart.

Repentance is another name for aspiration.

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

Some people are so dry that you might soak them in a joke for a month and it would not get through their skins.

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is a human owl, vigilant in darkness, and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a but.

The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.

Troubles are often the tools God fashions us for better things.

We not only live among men, but there are airy hosts, blessed spectators, sympathetic lookers-on, that see and know and appreciate our thoughts and feelings and acts.