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Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life

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
Life
Motivation
Inspiration
Effort
Happiness
Happy
Motives
Inspirational
Motive
Best
Definition
Great
Definitions

More quotes by 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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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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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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In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.
William Ellery Channing
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No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.
William Ellery Channing
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Home - the nursery of the Infinite.
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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To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth out not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration. The only distinctions which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, of incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking the truth.
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 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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The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal
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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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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One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
William Ellery Channing
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A general loftiness of sentiment, independence of men, consciousness of good intentions, self-oblivion in great objects, clear views of futurity thoughts of the blessed companionship of saints and angels, trust in God as the friend of truth and virtue,--these are the states of mind in which I should live.
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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To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.
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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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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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