Top 128 Quotes & Sayings by William Ellery Channing
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer William Ellery Channing.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
The world is governed by opinion.
God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.
The great hope of society is in individual character.
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.
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
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.
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.
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.
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.
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
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.
Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.
Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.
One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
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.
Error is discipline through which we advance.
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene.
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.
Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
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.
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.
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.
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.
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.
Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
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.
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.
The home is the chief school of human virtues.
Life has a higher end, than to be amused.
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.
Religion is faith in an infinite Creator, who delights in and enjoins that rectitude which conscience commands us to seek. This conviction gives a Divine sanction to duty.
Mistakes and errors are the discipline through which we advance.
A man might pass for insane who should see things as they are.
One of the tremendous evils of the world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands.
To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.
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.
Every human being is a volume, worthy to be studied.
The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.
Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.
Be true to your own highest convictions.
I am a living member of the great family of all souls; and I cannot improve or suffer myself, without diffusing good or evil around me through an ever-enlarging sphere. I belong to this family. I am bound to it by vital bonds.
May your life preach more loudly than your lips.
Reading is the royal road to intellectual eminence...Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past times. Genius is not embalmed in them, but lives in them perpetually.
Health is the working man's fortune, and he ought to watch over it more than the capitalist over his largest investments. Health lightens the efforts of body and mind. It enables a man to crowd much work into a narrow compass. Without it, little can be earned, and that little by slow, exhausting toil.
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.
Knowledge is essential to freedom.
To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth out not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration. The only distinctions which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, of incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking the truth.
It has often been observed, that those who have the most time at their disposal profit by it the least. A single hour a day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.
Whatever you may suffer, speak the truth. Be worthy of the entire confidence of your associates. Consider what is right as to what must be done. It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.
Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life
God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.
The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony.
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
Home - the nursery of the Infinite.
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