25 Quotes 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.
William Ellery Channing on best

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.
William Ellery Channing on communication

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.
William Ellery Channing on experience

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
William Ellery Channing on faith

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

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.
William Ellery Channing on great

How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
William Ellery Channing on happiness

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

The home is the chief school of human virtues.
William Ellery Channing on home

The great hope of society is in individual character.
William Ellery Channing on hope

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
William Ellery Channing on inspirational

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

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.
William Ellery Channing on knowledge

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

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

Life has a higher end, than to be amused.
William Ellery Channing on life

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
William Ellery Channing on love

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.
William Ellery Channing on nature

The world is governed by opinion.
William Ellery Channing on politics

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.
William Ellery Channing on power