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Quotes by H. W. Beecher
Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.— filed under Ambition
There is not a heart but has its moments of longing, yearning for something better, nobler, holier than it knows now.— filed under Aspiration
The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.— filed under Bible
There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.— filed under Bible
I met a brother who, describing a friend of his, said he was like a man who had dropped a bottle, and broken it, and put all the pieces in his bosom, where they were cutting him perpetually.— filed under Cares
When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. If we receive news that a news that a hundred thousand dollars had been left them by some one some one dying, we should be thrown into an ecstasy of rejoicing; but rejoicing; but when they have gone home to God, we stand, and mourn, and mourn, and pine, and wonder at the mystery of Providence.— filed under Children
If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity.— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
Like the cellar-growing vine is the Christian who lives in the darkness and bondage of fear. But let him go forth, with the liberty of God, into the light of love, and he will be like the plant in the field, healthy, robust, and joyful,— filed under Christians
Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence, - as a compliment from God.— filed under Christian Conflict
Christ is the ideal of what a man should be. He has my ideal portrait, as it were, drawn out in His own thought and feeling. There is an exaltation and a grandeur for myself in the time to come, which Christ knows, and I do not; but I am following after. I am pressing up toward that thought that Christ has of what I am and ought to be; and I am determined that I will apprehend it as Christ Himself does. Not that I have it; but I will strive for it. My manhood is in the future. My life lies beyond the present.— filed under Christian Conflict
Live for the other life. Endure as seeing Him who is invisible. Work by faith; work by hope; work by love; work by courage; work by trust; work by the sweet side of your mind; and so be like Christ, until you dwell with Him.— filed under Christian Life
Whoever lives a noble life for Christ and God - he is one of God's workmen, working on that building of which God is the supreme Architect.— filed under Christian Service
It is not to come in any particular way, or with any particular experience, but to arise and come to your Father, and say unto Him, "Father I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son; make me as one of Thy hired servants."— filed under Coming To Christ
Thou, Everlasting Strength, hast set Thyself forth to bear our burdens. May we bear Thy cross, and bearing that, find there is nothing else to bear; and touching that cross, find that instead of taking away our strength, it adds thereto. Give us faith for darkness, for trouble, for sorrow, for bereavement, for disappointment; give us a faith that will abide though the earth itself should pass away - a faith for living, a faith for dying.— filed under Cross Bearing
To the Christian, these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth, and mingles with its shadows.— filed under Death
And when no longer we can see Thee, may we reach out our hands, and find Thee leading us through death to immortality and glory. -— filed under Death
So we fall asleep in Jesus. We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death. We are tired out, and we lay our heads back on the bosom of Christ, and quietly fall asleep.— filed under Death
Dear brethren, our ship is sailing fast. We shall soon hear the rasping of the shallows, and the commotion overhead which bespeaks the port in view. When it comes to that, how will you feel? Are you a stranger, or a convict, or are you going home? Brethren, we are all sailing home; and by and by, when we are not thinking of it, some shadowy thing (men call it death), at midnight, will pass by, and will call us by name, and will say, "I have a message for you from home; God wants you; heaven waits for you."— filed under Death
Go on your knees before God. Bring all your idols; bring self-will, and pride, and every evil lust before Him, and give them up. Devote yourself, heart and soul, to His will; and see if you do not "know of the doctrine."— filed under Doctrine
A doctor might as well stand with his saddle-bags and scatter their contents through the community as a man tell all that he knows about people indiscriminately. Medicine is to be administered carefully. It is the work of skill to properly administer it. It is to be given according to the constitution, temperament, and condition of the patient. And truth, being a medicine, instead of being thrown about heedlessly, and indiscriminately, and with brutal barbarity, is to be administered with care and discretion.— filed under Evil Speaking
We would walk with Thee when Thou smitest us, and we would walk with Thee when Thou smilest upon us; for, smiling or smiting, it is in love. We take chastisement because we are sons, and Thou art Father. O grant that we may never feel Thy hand as Judge! Restrain us with Thy love. Wean us from our sin, and from the love of it, and bring us back to Thine own self.— filed under Faith In God
And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us.— filed under God's Mercy
Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the using of strength.— filed under Greatness
May we grow more and more like God and heaven, more gracious, helpful, and sweet-minded; and when at last Thou hast served Thyself by us, may we fall asleep in Jesus, and find it no sleep, but everlasting waking in Jesus.— filed under Growth In Grace
Thither my weak and weary steps are tending; Saviour and Lord! with Thy frail child abide ; Guide me toward home, where, all my wanderings ended, I there shall see Thee, and be satisfied. One should go to sleep as homesick passengers do, saying "Perhaps in the morning we shall see the shore.”— filed under Heaven
A May we be satisfied with nothing that shall not have in it something of immortality.— filed under Immortality
We pray for those who have ceased to pray. We pray for those that need prayer more than ever, that have fewer and fewer seasons even of thought, that grow hard with years, that are less and less troubled by sin, and that are more and more irreverent of religion. We pray for the children of Christian parents who sometimes weep at the memory of father and mother, but who never have thought of God.— filed under Impenitent
If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road.— filed under Indolence
No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work withal, for those who will.— filed under Labor
Our yearnings are homesicknesses for heaven; our sighings are for God, just as children that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, know not that they sob for their parents. The soul's inarticulate moanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what it is that ails them.— filed under Longing For God
There is a great deal more correctness of thought respecting manhood in bodily things than in moral things. For men's ideas of manhood shape themselves as the tower and spire of cathedrals do, that stand broad at the bottom, but grow tapering as they rise, and end, far up, in the finest lines, and in an evanishing point. Where they touch the ground they are most, and where they reach to the heaven they are least.— filed under Manhood
I long to have the children feel that there is nothing in this world more attractive, more earnestly to be desired than manhood in Jesus Christ.— filed under Manhood
Thus everywhere and always God's agents — small and great - are at work, unsettling the wrong, establishing the right, and carrying the links of Truth's golden chain around the world. When, O crowned Jesus; when, O loving Saviour; when, O patient and just Judge - when wilt Thou come forth from Thy hiding, and change tears to smiles, and groans to joys? When shall that choral song burst forth, sweeping through the air, and circling about Thy throne, which shall proclaim the redemption of the world to the Lord God?— filed under Millennium
Our high mission, our noble calling, is to build up souls, to perfect the Christian life, and to make manhood acceptable to God, and radiant in the sight of all men.— filed under Ministers
To be a Christian is to obey Christ no matter how you feel.— filed under Obedience
Let parents who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to inherit riches; and before long they will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty.— filed under Occupation
By religion I mean perfected manhood, - the quickening of the soul by the influence of the Divine Spirit.— filed under Religion
The whole of the Saviour's ministerial life, at least the part of it that stands on record, was passed in what we may call substantially a revival work.— filed under Revival
There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week.— filed under Sabbath
A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah! what shallow, vain conceit there is in man! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present; and you should reach up into the other life.— filed under Spiritual Progress
While the man before had climbed, on sharp, flinty precipices, slippery, abysmal; in darkness, seen by no kindred eye, - amid the brood of dragons; and his heart many times was like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in his extreme need; yet he climbed and climbed, gluing his footsteps in his blood ; and now behold, Hyperion-like, he has scaled the height, and on the summit shakes his glittering shafts of war! What a scene and new kingdom for him; all bathed in auroral radiance of Hope; far-stretching, solemn, joyful; what wild Memnon's music, from the depths of nature comes toning through the soul raised suddenly out of strangling death into victory and life! Success is full of promise till men get it ; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown. --— filed under Success
What are we, O blessed Jesus, that we should not take the baptism that Thou dost take, and be crowned, as Thou wert crowned, as Thou art, with glory? We thank Thee for trials, for care, for trouble, for the yoke, for the burden, and for the fulfillment of Thy word, that Thy yoke is easy, and Thy burden light.— filed under Trials
May we feel after Thee; still calling out in the darkness, as children waking in the night call "Father," so may we call out for God; and, at times, even if we do not hear Thy voice, may there be the form of a hand resting upon us, and that shall be enough; for we shall take hold of it, though it be in the dark, and it shall guide us to the growing light; for the day shall come, and the release and triumph.— filed under Trust In God
We have nothing to do but to surrender ourselves to God each day, without looking farther; He will carry us in His arms as a tender mother bears her child. Let us believe, hope, and love with all the simplicity of babes; in every necessity turning a loving and trusting look towards our Heavenly Father. It is a view of God that compensates every thing else, and enables the soul to rest in His bosom. How, when the child in the night screams with terror, hearing sounds that it knows not of, is that child comforted and put to rest? Is it by a philosophical explanation that the sounds were made by the rats in the partition? Is it by imparting entomological knowledge ? No; it is by the mother taking the child in her lap, and singing sweetly to it, and rocking it. And the child thinks nothing of the explanation, but only of the mother.— filed under Trust In God
Give us that calm certainty of truth, that nearness to Thee, that conviction of the reality of the life to come, which we shall need to bear us through the troubles of this.— filed under Truth
We cannot have right virtue without right conditions.— filed under Virtue
I had as lief preach humanity to a battle of eagles, as to urge honesty and integrity upon those who have determined to be rich, and to gain it by gambling stakes, and madmen's ventures.— filed under Worth
Oh thou corrupter of youth! I would not take thy death, for all the pleasures of thy guilty life, a thousand fold. Thou shalt draw near to the shadow of death. To the Christian these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth and mingles with its shadows. But to thee, these shall be shadows full of phantom-shapes. Images of terror in the Future shall dimly rise and beckon: -the ghastly deeds of the Past shall stretch out their skinny hands to push thee forward! Thou shalt not die unattended! Despair shall mock thee. Agony shall tender to thy parched lips her fiery cup. Remorse shall feel for thy heart and rend it open. Good men shall breathe freer at thy death, and utter thanksgiving when thou art gone.— filed under Youth
Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, lead you on until you are useless; then, if the virtuous do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without a friend in the universe.— filed under Youth