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We never know a greater character unless there is in ourselves something congenial to it.

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
Greater
Character
Something
Never
Congenial
Appreciation
Unless

More quotes by 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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Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake?
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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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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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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Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.
William Ellery Channing
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In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.
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
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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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Whatever you may suffer, speak the truth. Be worthy of the entire confidence of your associates. Consider what is right as to what must be done. It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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Life is a fragment, a moment between two eternities.
William Ellery Channing
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The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.
William Ellery Channing
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Another powerful principle of our nature, which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and control.
William Ellery Channing
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True love is the parent of humility.
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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How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
William Ellery Channing
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Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important, at the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves. They little suspect its extent, as little as the savage apprehends the energy which the mind is created to exert on the material world.
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