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I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

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
Society
Empires
Usurpations
Free
Tool
Cower
Doe
Refuse
Usurpation
Human
Slave
Nobler
Humans
Tools
Guards
Many
Protect
Protects
Mind
Opinion
Refuses
World
Call
Empire

More quotes by William Ellery Channing

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Be true to your own highest convictions.
William Ellery Channing
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Religion is faith in an infinite Creator, who delights in and enjoins that rectitude which conscience commands us to seek. This conviction gives a Divine sanction to duty.
William Ellery Channing
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A clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick and granite and plaster and stucco, however cunningly put together.
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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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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Labor is discovered to be the grand conqueror, enriching and building up nations more surely than the proudest battles.
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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God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.
William Ellery Channing
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Reading is the royal road to intellectual eminence...Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past times. Genius is not embalmed in them, but lives in them perpetually.
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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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
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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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Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.
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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O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness
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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A man in earnest finds means or, if he cannot find, creates them.
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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Home - the nursery of the Infinite.
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