Henry Ward Beecher

Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.

Many men build as cathedrals are built-the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.

Nothing marks the change from the city to the country so much as the absence of grinding noises. The country is never silent. But its sounds are separate, distinct, and as it were, articulate.

Nothing can be further apart than true humility and servility.

No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odor to the nostrils.

A very common flower adds generosity to beauty. It gives joy to the poor, to the rude, and to the multitudes who could have no flowers were nature to charge a price for her blossoms.

His nature is such that our often coming does not tire him. The whole burden of the whole life of every man may be rolled on to God and not weary him, though it has wearied man.

Coming to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs.

In the morning, we carry the world like Atlas; at noon, we stoop and bend beneath it; and at night, it crushes us flat to the ground.

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

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.

The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions, but by compelling them to yield their vigor to our moral nature.

Happiness is not the end of life: character is.

Work is not a curse, but drudgery is.

A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad track-an inch between wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity.

What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.

Death is the dropping of the flower, that the fruit may swell.

A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?

The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness -- or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.