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God be thanked for books they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

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
Age
Thanked
Reading
Heirs
Spiritual
Distant
Voice
Ages
Past
Voices
Book
God
Make
Dead
Life
Books

More quotes by William Ellery Channing

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Let us aspire towards this living confidence, that it is the will of God to unfold and exalt without end the spirit that entrusts itself to Him in well-doing as to a faithful Creator.
William Ellery Channing
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No punishment is so terrible as prosperous guilt.
William Ellery Channing
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He who is false to the present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and you will see the effect when the weaving of a life-time is unraveled.
William Ellery Channing
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We must not waste life in devising means. It is better to plan less and do more.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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The miracles of Christ were studiously performed in the most unostentatious way. He seemed anxious to veil His majesty under the love with which they were wrought.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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Every human being is intended to have a character of his own to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.
William Ellery Channing
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Life has a higher end, than to be amused
William Ellery Channing
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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.
William Ellery Channing
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Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life
William Ellery Channing
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The great hope of society is in individual character
William Ellery Channing
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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
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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.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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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
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Real greatness has nothing to do with a man’s sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects which he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little.
William Ellery Channing
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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