Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.

"Akrasia" [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the result of sudden impulse and accident than of that reason of which we so much boast.

We're all going to be victims of temptation at several points in our lives.

Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.

We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are certainly all capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

You know what, life is full of temptations.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

I have been exposed to a great amount of temptation throughout the course of my career.

Fear and greed are potent motivators. When both of these forces push in the same direction, virtually no human being can resist.

When a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

Every time I think I know what's right and wrong, I end up being wrong. All I want to do is explore. I want to see what people would do. I say, 'What would this person do in this situation?' and I write it down. I'm not writing manifestos of my political views.

Nothing is easier than sinning.

About the nature of human beings. I discovered that confronted by temptation, we will always fall. Given the right circumstances, every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil.

Whenever we confront an unbridled desire we are surely in the presence of a tragedy-in-the-making.

Man must choose either of the two courses, the upward or the downward; but as he has the brute in him, he will more easily choose the downward course than the upward, especially when the downward course is presented to him in a beautiful garb. Man easily capitulates when sin is presented in the garb of virtue.

I think that if more people saw more things, they wouldn't be able to really help themselves.

A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons for his vow.

Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.

We often do not know ourselves the grounds On which we act, though plain to others.

It's only ... when we're stripped of purpose that we know who we are.

We always do what's natural, only sometimes we shouldn't do it.