The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that young people should embrace change and innovation, rather than conforming to conservative values too early in life.
Henry Ward Beecher highlights the dangers of a conservative mindset among the youth, indicating that when young individuals adopt rigid beliefs and resist change, they stifle their own potential and the progress of society. This stagnation is detrimental, as it suggests a lack of growth and adaptability, essential qualities for the vitality of a nation. If young people are already set in their ways, it signals a bleak future where innovation and evolution are hindered by outdated perspectives.
Themes
ConservatismYouthChangeInnovationProgress
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about youth empowerment, one might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of adaptability.
More from Henry Ward Beecher
All quotes →A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
No one can deal with the hearts of men unless he has the sympathy which is given by love.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
No man can tell if he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
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 BeecherRead
Similar quotes
The resentment of discipline of any kind will warp the whole life away from God's purpose.
Oswald ChambersRead
I have yet to meet a single person from our culture, no matter what his or her educational background, IQ, and specific training, who had powerful transpersonal experiences and continues to subscribe to the materialistic monism of Western science.
Albert EinsteinRead
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
H. G. WellsRead
What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.
Harriet Beecher StoweRead
Faith is indeed intellectual; it involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowledge. But although faith is intellectual, it is not only intellectual. You cannot have faith without having knowledge; but you will not have faith if you have only knowledge.
John Gresham MachenRead
Yesterday I lived, today I suffer, tomorrow I die; but I still think fondly, today and tomorrow, of yesterday.
Gotthold Ephraim LessingRead