Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Doe
Intellectual
Passive
May
Rights
Calls
Come
Call
Powers
Mind
Heaven
Content
Jealously
Men
Free
Master
Hereditary
Faith
Angel
Guards
Light
Masters
Receives
Truth
Revolution
Opens

More quotes by William Ellery Channing

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Home - the nursery of the Infinite.
William Ellery Channing
Image
We never know a greater character unless there is in ourselves something congenial to it.
William Ellery Channing
Image
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
William Ellery Channing
Image
In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.
William Ellery Channing
Image
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
Image
Be true to your own highest convictions.
William Ellery Channing
Image
To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.
William Ellery Channing
Image
The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.
William Ellery Channing
Image
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
Image
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
Image
All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene
William Ellery Channing
Image
What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!
William Ellery Channing
Image
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
William Ellery Channing
Image
Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.
William Ellery Channing
Image
A man in earnest finds means or, if he cannot find, creates them.
William Ellery Channing
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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