William Ellery Channing Quotes

101 Sourced Quotes

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.

William Ellery Channing
Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. So that a single act of mine may spread and spread in widening circles, through a nation or humanity. Through my vice I intensify the taint of vice throughout the universe. Through my misery I make multitudes sad. On the other hand, every development of my virtue makes me an ampler blessing to my race. Every new truth that I gain makes me a brighter light to humanity.

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

William Ellery Channing
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.

William Ellery Channing
Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life

William Ellery Channing
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.

William Ellery Channing
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.

William Ellery Channing
To do God's will as fast as it is made known to us, to inquire hourly -- I had almost said each moment -- what He requires of us, and to leave ourselves, our friends, and every interest at His control, with a cheerful trust that the path which He marks out leads to our perfection and to Himself, -- this is at once our duty and happiness; and why will we not walk in the plain, simple way?.

William Ellery Channing
To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.

William Ellery Channing
Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof.

William Ellery Channing
Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

William Ellery Channing