William Ellery Channing Quotes

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

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

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.

Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.

But the ground of a man's culture lies in his nature, not in his calling. His powers are to be unfolded on account of their inherent dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated, because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nail, or pins.

[Peace] is the highest and most strenuous act of the soul, but an entirely harmonious act, in which all our powers and affections are blending in a beautiful proportion, and sustain and perfect one another. It is more than the silence after storms. It is as the concord of all melodious sounds ... an alliance of love with all beings, a sympathy with all that is pure and happy, a surrender of every separate will and interest, a participation of the spirit and life of the universe.... This is peace, and the true happiness of [humanity].

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.

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.

Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important, at the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves. They little suspect its extent, as little as the savage apprehends the energy which the mind is created to exert on the material world.

Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.

We never know a greater character unless there is in ourselves something congenial to it.

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

I laugh, for hope hath a happy place with me; If my boat sinks, 'tis to another sea.

My highway is unfeatured air, My consorts are the sleepless stars, And men my giant arms upbear My arms unstained and free from scars.

No punishment is so terrible as prosperous guilt.

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.

Most joyful let the Poet be, it is through him that all men see.

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.

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.

All that we do outwardly is but the expression and completion of our inward thought. To work effectively, we must think clearly; to act nobly, we must think nobly.

There is but a very minute portion of the creation which we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification for the body; but the whole creation may be used to minister to the sense of beauty.

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.

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.

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

Life is a fragment, a moment between two eternities.

The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.

An earnest purpose finds time, or makes it. It seizes on spare moments, and turns fragments to golden account.

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

In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.

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 domestic relations precede, and in our present existence are worth more than all our other social ties. They give the first throb to the heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Home is the chief school of human virtue. Its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life.

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.

The great hope of society is in individual character

In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.

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

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

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

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.

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

Compassionate Saviour! We welcome Thee to our world, We welcome Thee to our hearts. We bless Thee for the Divine goodness Thou hast brought from heaven; for the souls Thou hast warmed with love to man, and lifted up in love to God; for the efforts of divine philanthropy which Thou hast inspired; and for that hope of a pure celestial life, through which Thy disciples triumph over death.

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.

Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.

A general loftiness of sentiment, independence of men, consciousness of good intentions, self-oblivion in great objects, clear views of futurity; thoughts of the blessed companionship of saints and angels, trust in God as the friend of truth and virtue,--these are the states of mind in which I should live.

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

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.

What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!

No man receives the full culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and there is no condition of life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries this is the cheapest, and the most at hand, and most important to those conditions where coarse labor tends to give grossness to the mind.

A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.