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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
Unless
Greater
Character
Something
Never
Congenial
Appreciation

More quotes by William Ellery Channing

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Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
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 only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.
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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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 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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The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey.
William Ellery Channing
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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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Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.
William Ellery Channing
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Books are true levelers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.
William Ellery Channing
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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
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No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.
William Ellery Channing
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Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.
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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I am a living member of the great family of all souls and I cannot improve or suffer myself, without diffusing good or evil around me through an ever-enlarging sphere. I belong to this family. I am bound to it by vital bonds.
William Ellery Channing
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Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
William Ellery Channing
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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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Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, that is, in the force of thought, moral principle, and love, and this may be found in the humblest condition of life
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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My highway is unfeatured air, My consorts are the sleepless stars, And men my giant arms upbear My arms unstained and free from scars.
William Ellery Channing