Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
William Ellery Channing
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
William Ellery Channing
Age: 62 †
Born: 1780
Born: April 7
Died: 1842
Died: October 2
Pastor
Preacher
Theologian
Newport
Rhode Island
Reverend William Ellery Channing
Work
Patriotic
Men
Libertarian
Office
Happiness
Opportunity
Give
Government
Giving
Confer
More quotes by William Ellery Channing
Other blessings may be taken away, but if we have acquired a good friend by goodness, we have a blessing which improves in value when others fail.
William Ellery Channing
Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.
William Ellery Channing
Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.
William Ellery Channing
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.
William Ellery Channing
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.
William Ellery Channing
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
William Ellery Channing
I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.
William Ellery Channing
A man may quarrel with himself alone that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.
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
To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.
William Ellery Channing
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.
William Ellery Channing
All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene
William Ellery Channing
War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ.
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
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
William Ellery Channing
True love is the parent of humility.
William Ellery Channing
Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.
William Ellery Channing
The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.
William Ellery Channing
Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.
William Ellery Channing
The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts.
William Ellery Channing