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The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
William Ellery Channing
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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
Men
Libertarian
Office
Happiness
Opportunity
Give
Government
Giving
Confer
Work
Patriotic
More quotes by William Ellery Channing
Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.
William Ellery Channing
No man receives the full culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished and there is no condition of life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries this is the cheapest, and the most at hand, and most important to those conditions where coarse labor tends to give grossness to the mind.
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
The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal
William Ellery Channing
All that we do outwardly is but the expression and completion of our inward thought. To work effectively, we must think clearly to act nobly, we must think nobly.
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
Life has a higher end, than to be amused
William Ellery Channing
We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers.
William Ellery Channing
Mistakes and errors are the discipline through which we advance.
William Ellery Channing
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
William Ellery Channing
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
William Ellery Channing
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy the intercourse with superior minds.
William Ellery Channing
No punishment is so terrible as prosperous guilt.
William Ellery Channing
To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth out not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration. The only distinctions which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, of incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking the truth.
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
To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.
William Ellery Channing
But the ground of a man's culture lies in his nature, not in his calling. His powers are to be unfolded on account of their inherent dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated, because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nail, or pins.
William Ellery Channing
I am a living member of the great family of all souls.
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