Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.

I want to share knowledge about things I've learned over the years with a younger generation that is seeking the truth.

Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.

The truth will lead me to all.

Of what I know, I have told you only a little. Why have I not told you the rest? Because it would not lead you to Nirvana.

Nobody ever told me, I found out for myself, you got to believe in foolish miracles.

Reverence makes it possible to be whole, though ignorant. It is the wholeness of understanding.

When the panting and thirsting soul first drinks the delicious waters of truth, when the moral and intellectual tastes and desires first seize the fragrant fruits that flourish in the garden of knowledge, then does the child catch a glimpse and foretaste of heaven.

I have to tell it again and again: I have no doctrine. I only point out something. I point out reality, I point out something in reality which has not or too little been seen. I take him who listens to me at his hand and lead him to the window. I push open the window and point outside. I have no doctrine, I carry on a dialogue.

The question is, whether, like the Divine Child in the Temple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom, and whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law; and whether, having left behind the priests and the scribes and the doctors and the fathers, we are about our Father's business, and becoming wise to God.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Reason saw not, till Faith sprung the Light.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children.

It seems to me that the darkness that has troubled you ... comes from one very serious source. Without wanting to be in conflict with the truth and with the will of God, we are actually going against God's will and His teaching.

Interest in Education will acquire great strength only from the moment when belief in a God and His care is renounced, just as the art of healing could only flourish when the belief in miracle cures ceased.

Hinduism is a relentless pursuit of Truth. "Truth is God" and if today it has become moribund, inactive, irresponsive to growth, it is because we are fatigued; and as soon as the fatigue is over, Hinduism will burst upon the world with a brilliance perhaps unknown before.

The way of truth is like a great road. It is not difficult to know it. The evil is only that men will not seek it.

Not to the curious or impatient soulThat in the start, demands the end be shown,And at each step, stops waiting for a sign;But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,Shall the great miracles of God be knownAnd life revealed, immortal and divine.

We can never know who or what we are till we know at least something of what God is.

Meditation is the eye that sees the Truth, the heart that feels the Truth and the soul that realises the Truth.

Knowing the Self, God is known.

Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.

We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]