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Adversity
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Affliction comes to us all, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Art
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"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Coffee (or Tea)
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A cup of coffee - real coffee - home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Excellence
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"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself."
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Experience
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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.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Generosity
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"Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven."
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Gratitude
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Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Laughter
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Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety--all this rust of life--ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Morals
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Morality is character and conduct such as is required by the circle or community in which the man's life happens to be placed. It shows how much good men require of us.
-Henry Ward Beecher, Life of Thoughts, 1858
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Mother
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"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Music
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This world is not a platform where you will hear Thalberg-piano-playing. It is a piano manufactory, where are dust and shavings and boards, and saws and files and rasps and sandpapers. The perfect instrument and the music will be hereafter.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Persistence
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The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Selfishness
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Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Sleep
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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.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Truth
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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.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Work
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"Victories are easy and cheap. The only victories worth anything are those achieved through hard work and dedication."
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Books by and about Henry Ward Beecher