William Ellery Channing Quotes - Page 2

Knowledge is essential to freedom.

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

A man might pass for insane who should see things as they are.

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

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.

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

Perhaps in our presence, the most heroic deed on earth is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.

Every human being is a volume, worthy to be studied.

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.

The great hope of society is in individual character

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

The home is the chief school of human virtues.

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

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.

God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.

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.

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.

Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.

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.

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

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.

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.

[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].

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.

The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.