Henry Ward Beecher on Religion
1813–1887 United States
← All quotes by Henry Ward Beecher
7 quotes
The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.
Life Thoughts (1858)
There is no such thing as preaching patience into people, unless the sermon is so long that they have to practise it while they hear.
Life Thoughts (1858)
Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul. "The kingdom of God is within you."
One should go to sleep as homesick passengers do, saying " Perhaps in the morning we shall see the shore."
Christ, then, raised men from religion as a bondage to religion as a freedom.
The Nature Of Liberty (1873)
Men use religion just as they use buoys and life-preservers; they do not intend to navigate the vessel with them, but they keep just enough of them on hand to float into a safe harbor when a storm comes up and the vessel is shipwrecked; and it is only then that they intend to use them. I tell you, you will find air-holes in all such life-preservers as that.
By religion I do not mean outward things, but inward states, I mean perfected manhood. I mean the quickening of the soul by the beatific influence of the divine Spirit in truth, and love, and sympathy, and confidence, and trust.