William Ellery Channing Quotes
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.
We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.
Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd even toward the best objective.
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.
One of the tremendous evils of the world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands.
I laugh, for hope hath a happy place with me; If my boat sinks, 'tis to another sea.
No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.
The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought.
God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.
O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
Precept is instruction written in the sand; the tide flows over it and the record is gone; example is graven on the rock, and the lesson is not soon lost.
The world is to be carried forward by truth, which at first offends, which wins its way by degrees, which the many hate and would rejoice to crush.
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.
He who is false to the present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and you will see the effect when the weaving of a life-time is unraveled.
God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy the intercourse with superior minds.
We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers.
We never know a greater character unless there is in ourselves something congenial to it.
What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.
