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

About Henry Ward Beecher

1813 – 1887

American clergyman and social reformer.

“Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it.”

“He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.”

“Where is human nature so weak as in a book store?”

“It was for this that I've been training myself, it was for this that I was practising.”

“For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire.”

“Ask yourself at every moment, "Is this necessary?"”

“A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all—that is myself.”

“Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!”

“It may be called the Master Passion—the hunger for Self-Approval.”