William Ellery Channing Quotes

All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Error is discipline through which we advance... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, that is, in the force of thought, moral principle, and love, and this may be found in the humblest condition of life... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance... view

By: William Ellery Channing

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... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him... view

By: William Ellery Channing

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... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves... view

By: William Ellery Channing

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... view

By: William Ellery Channing

How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind... view

By: William Ellery Channing

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... view

By: William Ellery Channing

It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great... view

By: William Ellery Channing

It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Life has a higher end, than to be amused... view

By: William Ellery Channing

No one should part with their individuality and become that of another... view

By: William Ellery Channing

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... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own.. view

By: William Ellery Channing

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography... view

By: William Ellery Channing

The great hope of society is in individual character... view

By: William Ellery Channing

God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it... view

By: William Ellery Channing

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost... view

By: William Ellery Channing

God be thanked for books.. view

By: William Ellery Channing

The home is the chief school of human virtues... view

By: William Ellery Channing

We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit.. view

By: William Ellery Channing

Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself... view

By: William Ellery Channing

The world is governed by opinion... view

By: William Ellery Channing

The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal... view

By: William Ellery Channing

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves... view

By: William Ellery Channing

The mind, in proportion as it is cut off from free communication with nature, with revelation, with God, with itself, loses its life, just as the body droops when debarred from the air and the cheering light from heaven... view

By: William Ellery Channing