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Ordinarily Rivers Run Small At The Beginning, Grow Broader And Broader As They Proceed, And Become Widest And Deepest At The Point, Where They Enter The Sea. It Is Such Rivers That The Christian's Life Is Like. But The Life Of The Mere Worldly Man Is Like Those Rivers In Southern Africa, Which, Proceeding From Mountain Freshets, Are Broad And Deep At The Beginning, And Grow Narrower And More Shallow As They Advance. They Waster Themselves By Soaking Into The Sands, And At Last They Die Out Entirely. The Farther They Run The Less There Is Of Them.

-Henry Ward Beecher

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Ordinarily Rivers Run Small

Henry Ward Beecher

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Ordinarily Rivers Run Small At The Beginning, Grow Broader And Broader As They Proceed, And Become Widest And Deepest At The Point, Where They Enter The Sea. It Is Such Rivers That The Christian's Life Is Like. But The Life Of The Mere Worldly Man Is Like Those Rivers In Southern Africa, Which, Proceeding From Mountain Freshets, Are Broad And Deep At The Beginning, And Grow Narrower And More Shallow As They Advance. They Waster Themselves By Soaking Into The Sands, And At Last They Die Out Entirely. The Farther They Run The Less There Is Of Them.

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That Which Men Suppose The Imagination To Be, And To Do, Is Often Frivolous Enough And Mischievous Enough; But That Which God Meant It To Be In The Mental Economy Is Not Merely Noble, But Supereminent. It Is The Distinguishing Element In All Refinement. It Is The Secret And Marrow Of Civilization. It Is The Very Eye Of Faith. The Soul Without Imagination Is What An Observatory Would Be Without A Telescope.

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There Is So Much That Is Deaf And Dumb In Man, And So Much That Is Paralyzed, So Much That Is Shrunken, That Nothing Short Of A Miraculous Touch Of Re-creation Can Make Them At Death Perfect Beings.

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Everyone Has Conscience Enough To Hate; Few Have Religion Enough To Love.

At The Bottom Of Every Leaf-stem Is A Cradle, And In It Is An Infant Germ; The Winds Will Rock It, The Birds Will Sing To It All Summer Long, But The Next Season It Will Unfold And Go Alone.

Music Cleanses The Understanding; Inspires It, And Lifts It Into A Realm Which It Would Not Reach If It Were Left To Itself.

Beauty May Be Said To Be God's Trademark In Creation.

Women Are A New Race, Recreated Since The World Received Christianity.

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God Planted Fear In The Soul As Truly As He Planted Hope Or Courage. Pear Is A Kind Of Bell, Or Gong, Which Rings The Mind Into Quick Life And Avoidance Upon The Approach Of Danger. It Is The Soul's Signal For Rallying.

Caution And Conservatism Are Expected Of Old Age; But When The Young Men Of A Nation Are Possessed Of Such A Spirit, When They Are Afraid Of The Noise And Strife Caused By The Applications Of The Truth, Heaven Save The Land! Its Funeral Bell Has Already Rung.

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Riches Are Not An End Of Life, But An Instrument Of Life.

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What A Mother Sings To The Cradle Goes All The Way Down To The Coffin.

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Whenever Education And Refinement Carry Us Away From The Common People, They Are Growing Towards Selfishness, Which Is The Monster Evil Of The World. That Is True Cultivation Which Gives Us Sympathy With Every Form Of Human Life, And Enables Us To Work Most Successfully For Its Advancement. Refinement That Carries Us Away From Our Fellow People Is Not God's Refinement.

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Flattery Is Praise Insincerely Given For An Interested Purpose.

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God Is Like Us To This Extent, That Whatever In Us Is Good Is Like God.

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There Is No Friendship, No Love, Like That Of The Parent For The Child.

Home Should Be The Center Of Joy, Equatorial And Tropical.

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Today Is A Goblet Day. The Whole Heavens Have Been Mingled With Exquisite Skill To A Delicious Flavor, And The Crystal Cup Put To Every Lip. Breathing Is Like Ethereal Drinking. It Is A Luxury Simply To Exist.

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The Real Man Is One Who Always Finds Excuses For Others, But Never Excuses Himself.

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Unfruitful Emotion Is To Be Suspected. Feeling Acts As An Impulse, As A Spur, As A Spring, And When Feelings Are Excited, And They Put Nothing Forward, They Are Sometimes Even Dangerous To A Man.

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There Ought To Be Such An Atmosphere In Every Christian Church That A Man Going There And Sitting Two Hours Should Take The Contagion Of Heaven, And Carry Home A Fire To Kindle The Altar Whence He Came.

Happy Is The Man Who Has That In His Soul Which Acts Upon The Dejected As April Airs Upon Violet Roots. Gifts From The Hand Are Silver And Gold, But The Heart Gives That Which Neither Silver Nor Gold Can Buy. To Be Full Of Goodness, Full Of Cheerfulness, Full Of Sympathy, Full Of Helpful Hope, Causes A Man To Carry Blessings Of Which He Is Himself As Unconscious As A Lamp Is Of Its Own Shining. Such A One Moves On Human Life As Stars Move On Dark Seas To Bewildered Mariners; As The Sun Wheels, Bringing All The Seasons With Him From The South.

Fear Is The Soul's Signal For Rallying.

The Way To Avoid Evil Is Not By Maiming Our Passions, But By Compelling Them To Yield Their Vigor To Our Moral Nature.

Reading Is A Dissuasion From Immorality. Reading Stands In The Place Of Company.

It Is A Bitter Thought To An Avaricious Spirit That By And By All These Accumulations Must Be Left Behind. We Can Only Carry Away From This World The Flavor Of Our Good Or Evil Deeds.

This World Is Not A Platform Where You Will Hear Thalberg-piano-playing. It Is A Piano Manufactory, Where Are Dust And Shavings And Boards, And Saws And Files And Rasps And Sandpapers. The Perfect Instrument And The Music Will Be Hereafter.

The Pen Is The Tongue Of The Hand; A Silent Utterer Of Words For The Eye.

Many Men Are Stored Full Of Unused Knowledge. Like Loaded Guns That Are Never Fired Off, Or Military Magazines In Times Of Peace, They Are Stuffed With Useless Ammunition.

Books Are The Windows Through Which The Soul Looks Out.

Some People Are So Dry That You Might Soak Them In A Joke For A Month And It Would Not Get Through Their Skins.

The Beginnings Of Moral Enterprises In This World Are Never To Be Measured By Any Apparent Growth. ... At Length Comes The Sudden Ripeness And The Full Success, And He Who Is Called In At The Final Moment Deems This Success His Own. He Is But The Reaper And Not The Labourer. Other Men Sowed And Tilled And He But Enters Into Their Labours.

Good Men Are Not Those Who Now And Then Do A Good Act, But Men Who Join One Good Act To Another.

Pain Is God's Midwife, That Helps Some Virtue Into Existence.

Next To Ingratitude The Most Painful Thing To Bear Is Gratitude.

What If You Have Seen It Before, Ten Thousand Times Over? An Apple Tree In Full Blossom Is Like A Message, Sent Fresh From Heaven To Earth, Of Purity And Beauty.

Hope Is Sweet-minded And Sweet-eyed. It Draws Pictures; It Weaves Fancies; It Fills The Future With Delight.

As For Marigolds, Poppies, Hollyhocks, And Valorous Sunflowers, We Shall Never Have A Garden Without Them, Both For Their Own Sake, And For The Sake Of Old-fashioned Folks, Who Used To Love Them.

A Man Has No More Religion Than He Acts Out In His Life.

Even A Liar Tells A Hundred Truths To One Lie; He Has To, To Make The Lie Good For Anything.

It Is Not The Going Out Of Port, But The Coming In, That Determines The Success Of A Voyage.

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Maple-trees Are The Cows Of Trees (spring-milked).

Not That Which Men Do Worthily, But That Which They Do Successfully, Is What History Makes Haste To Record.

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There Is A Power In The Human Mind ... To See Things As They Are ... But There Is Equally A Power To See Things As They Might Be.

Morality Is Good, And Is Accepted Of God, As Far As It Goes; But The Difficulty Is, It Does Not Go Far Enough.

When There Is Love In The Heart, There Are Rainbows In The Eyes, Which Cover Every Black Cloud With Gorgeous Hues.

He Is Rich Or Poor According To What He Is, Not According To What He Has.

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There Are Materials Enough In Every Man's Mind To Make A Hell There.

If You Attempt To Beat A Man Down And To Get His Goods For Less Than A Fair Price, You Are Attempting To Commit Burglary, As Much As Though You Broke Into His Shop To Take The Things Without Paying For Them.

Nobody Ever Sees Truth Except In Fragments.

There Is Nothing That Makes More Cowards And Feeble Men Than Public Opinion.

A Man That Puts Himself On The Ground Of Moral Principle, If The Whole World Be Against Him, Is Mightier Than All Of Them.

Reason Is A Permanent Blessing Of God To The Soul. Without It There Can Be No Large Religion.

Refinement That Carries Us Away From Our Fellow-men Is Not God's Refinement.

The Greatest Architect And The One Most Needed Is Hope.

Good-nature Is One Of The Richest Fruits Of True Christianity.

The Great Lever By Which To Raise And Save The World Is The Unbounded Love And Mercy Of God.

The World Is To Be Cleaned By Somebody, And You Are Not Called Of God If You Are Ashamed To Scrub.

Love Is Not A Possession But A Growth. The Heart Is A Lamp With Just Oil Enough To Burn For An Hour, And If There Be No Oil To Put In Again Its Light Will Go Out. God's Grace Is The Oil That Fills The Lamp Of Love.

Most Of The Debts Of Europe Represent Condensed Drops Of Blood.

There Is An Army Of Waiters In This World.

The Soul Without Imagination Is What An Observatory Would Be Without A Telescope.

Someone Calls Biography The Home Aspect Of History.

Life Would Be A Perpetual Flea Hunt If A Man Were Obliged To Run Down All The Innuendoes, Inveracities, And Insinuations And Misrepresentations Which Are Uttered Against Him.

A Man Is A Fool Who Sits Looking Backward From Himself In The Past. Ah, What Shallow, Vain Conceit There Is In Man! Forget The Things That Are Behind. That Is Not Where You Live. Your Roots Are Not There. They Are In The Present; And You Should Reach Up Into The Other Life.

As Long As Society Is Absolutely Divided As Milk Is, The Cream Being At The Top And The Impoverished Milk At The Bottom, So Long Will Society Be Unbalanced, And Liable To Be Thrown Into Convulsions Out Of Which Will Spring Wars. A Circulation Throughout Keeps It In Health.

The Bible Stands Alone In Human Literature In Its Elevated Conception Of Manhood, In Character And Conduct.

No Coffee Can Be Good In The Mouth That Does Not First Send A Sweet Offering Of Odor To The Nostrils.

A Christianity Which Will Not Help Those Who Are Struggling From The Bottom To The Top Of Society, Needs Another Christ To Die For It.

Now Comes The Mystery.

Your Greatest Pleasure Is That Which Rebounds From Hearts That You Have Made Glad.

Wealth Held By A Class And Used Ambitiously Becomes As Despotic As An Absolute Monarchy, And Has In Its Hands Manners, Customs, Laws, Institutions, And Governments Themselves.

It Is Not Well For A Man To Pray Cream And Live Skim Milk.

A Man Without Ambition Is Like A Beautiful Worm - It Can Creep, But It Cannot Fly.

We Let Our Blessings Get Mouldy, And Then Call Them Curses.

Don't Look Where You Fall, But Where You Slipped.

Loving Is Like Music. Some Instruments Can Go Up Two Octaves, Some Four, And Some All The Way From Black Thunder To Sharp Lightning. As Some Of Them Are Susceptible Only Of Melody, So Some Hearts Can Sing But One Song Of Love, While Others Will Fun In A Full Choral Harmony.

A Man Never Has Good Luck Who Has A Bad Wife.

No Cradle For An Emperor's Child Was Ever Prepared With So Much Magnificence As This World Has Been Made For Man. But It Is Only His Cradle.

A Dull Axe Never Loves Grindstones, But A Keen Workman Does; And He Puts His Tool On Them In Order That It May Be Sharp. And Men Do Not Like Grinding; But They Are Dull For The Purposes Which God Designs To Work Out With Them, And Therefore He Is Grinding Them.

The Clearest Window That Ever Was Fashioned If It Is Barred By Spiders' Webs, And Hung Over With Carcasses Of Insects, So That The Sunlight Has Forgotten To Find Its Way Through, Of What Use Can It Be? Now, The Church Is God's Window; And If It Is So Obscured By Errors That Its Light Is Darkness, How Great Is That Darkness!

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Religion Would Save A Man; Christ Would Make Him Worth Saving.

There Are More Quarrels Smothered By Just Shutting Your Mouth, And Holding It Shut, Than By All The Wisdom In The World.

Remember God's Bounty In The Year. String The Pearls Of His Favor. Hide The Dark Parts, Except So Far As They Are Breaking Out In Light! Give This One Day To Thanks, To Joy, To Gratitude!

Flowers Are Sent To Do God's Work In Unrevealed Paths, And To Diffuse Influence By Channels That We Hardly Suspect.

A Reputation For Good Judgment, For Fair Dealing, For Truth, And For Rectitude, Is Itself A Fortune.

The Slave Labors, But With No Cheer - It Is Not The Road To Respectability, It Will Honor Him With No Citizens' Trust, It Brings No Bread To His Family, No Grain To His Garner, No Leisure In After-days, No Books Or Papers To His Children. It Opens No School-house Door, Builds No Church, Rears For Him No Factory, Lays No Keel, Fills No Bank, Earns No Acres. With Sweat And Toil And Ignorance He Consumes His Life, To Pour The Earnings Into Channels From Which He Does No Drink, Into Hands That Never Honor Him. But Perpetually Rob And Often Torment.

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