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It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.

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
Important
Unblemished
Great
Compass
Preserve
Preserves
Object
Conscience
However
Objects

More quotes by 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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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
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It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions , from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence.
William Ellery Channing
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Be true to your own highest convictions.
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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Home - the nursery of the Infinite.
William Ellery Channing
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The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.
William Ellery Channing
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A man in earnest finds means or, if he cannot find, creates them.
William Ellery Channing
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The home is the chief school of human virtues.
William Ellery Channing
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Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
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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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
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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
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The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.
William Ellery Channing
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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.
William Ellery Channing
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Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.
William Ellery Channing
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Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
William Ellery Channing
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To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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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