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The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all human actions into two classes — openly bad and secretly bad.

— Henry Ward Beecher Lectures to Young Men (1844)

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More quotes by Henry Ward Beecher

The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.

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When laws, customs, or institutions cease to be beneficial to man, they cease to be obligatory.

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He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

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Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.

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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.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henry Ward Beecher (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.