Henry Ward Beecher

“Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.”

“A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.”

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

“The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history.”

“The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.”

“Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.”

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”

“Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.”

“The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.”

“Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.”

“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.”

“When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”

“Books are not men and yet they stay alive.”

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

“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.”

“Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.”

“To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice.”

“In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.”

“It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.”

“The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.”

“The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!”

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

“The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.”