Henry Ward Beecher

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will and the other from a strong won't.

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.

We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God's.

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.

The strength of a man consists in finding out the way in which God is going and going in that way too.

None love to speak so much when the mood of speaking comes as they who are naturally taciturn.

Victories that are cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.

A door that seems to stand open must be of a man's size or it is not the door that providence means for him.

Prayer covers the whole of man's life. There is no thought feeling yearning or desire however low trifling or vulgar we may deem it which if it affects our real interest or happiness we may not lay before God and be sure of sympathy. 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.

I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation and there must be a vent.

Prayer covers the whole of man's life. There is no thought feeling yearning or desire however low trifling or vulgar we may deem it which if it affects our real interest or happiness we may not lay before God and be sure of sympathy. 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 the man.

It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk.

The meanest most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man and then qualifies it with a 'but'.

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

Any man can work when every stroke of his hands brings down the fruit rattling from the tree ... but to labor in season and out of season under every discouragement... that requires a heroism which is transcendent.

Clothes and manners do not make the man but when he is made they greatly improve his appearance.

What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.

There is no friendship no love like that of the parent for the child.