William Ellery Channing Quotes

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

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.

William Ellery Channing

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.

William Ellery Channing

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

The great hope of society is in individual character.

William Ellery Channing

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

William Ellery Channing

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

William Ellery Channing

Life has a higher end, than to be amused.

William Ellery Channing

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

William Ellery Channing

The world is governed by opinion.

William Ellery Channing

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.

William Ellery Channing

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

William Ellery Channing