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Of all formal things in the world, a clipped hedge is the most formal and of all the informal things in the world, a forest tree is the most informal.

Henry Ward Beecher

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Henry Ward Beecher
Journalist
Minister
Politician
Theologian
Litchfield (town)
Connecticut
Forests
Tree
Things
Clipped
World
Informal
Shrubs
Hedge
Forest
Formal

More quotes by Henry Ward Beecher

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A house built on sand is, in fair weather, just as good as if builded on a rock. A cobweb is as good as the mightiest chain cable when there is no strain on it. It is trial that proves one thing weak and another strong.
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A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man, by one lower than himself.
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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.
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The mere wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells are to horses-not expected to draw the load, but only to jingle while the horses draw.
Henry Ward Beecher
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No grief has a right to immortality. That ground belongs to joy, to hope, to faith.
Henry Ward Beecher
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Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.
Henry Ward Beecher
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Blessed be the man whose work drives him. Something must drive men and if it is wholesome industry, they have no time for a thousand torments and temptations.
Henry Ward Beecher
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The whole of the Saviour's ministerial life, at least the part of it that stands on record, was passed in what we may call substantially a revival work.
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Men can make an idol of the Bible.
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Boys have their soft and gentle moods too. You would suppose by the morning racket that nothing could be more foreign to their nature than romance and vague sadness. . . . But boys have hours of great sinking and sadness, when kindness and fondness are peculiarly needful to them.
Henry Ward Beecher
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A man should fear when he only enjoys what good he does publicly. Is it not the publicity rather than the charity he loves? Is it not vanity, rather than benevolence, that gives such charities?
Henry Ward Beecher
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God makes the life fertile by disappointments, as he makes the ground fertile by frosts.
Henry Ward Beecher
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The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.
Henry Ward Beecher
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Pushing any truth out very far, you are met by a counter-truth.
Henry Ward Beecher
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A man without self-restraint is like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.
Henry Ward Beecher
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The best lessons a man ever learns are from his mistakes. It is not for want of schoolmasters that we are still ignorant.
Henry Ward Beecher
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If a man has come to that point where he is no content that he says I do not want to know any more, or do any more or be any more, he is in a state in which he ought to be changed into a mummy.
Henry Ward Beecher
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Like the cellar-growing vine is the Christian who lives in the darkness and bondage of fear. But let him go forth, with the liberty of God, into the light of love, and he will be like the plant in the field, healthy, robust, and joyful.
Henry Ward Beecher
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The mystery of history is an insoluble problem.
Henry Ward Beecher
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There never was a liar that had not a spot in him where he could not help admiring truth.
Henry Ward Beecher