William Ellery Channing image
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Born in November 29, 1818 / Died in December 23, 1901 / United States / English

Quotes 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.
Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.
The great hope of society is in individual character.
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.
One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
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.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
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 mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
Life has a higher end, than to be amused.
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
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.
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.
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.
The home is the chief school of human virtues.
No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.
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.
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.
The world is governed by opinion.
Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.