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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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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
Another
Triumph
Nature
Principle
Power
Spring
Human
Principles
Aspiring
Humans
Control
Inferiority
Mind
Passion
Eager
Powerful
Impatient
War
Superiority
More quotes by William Ellery Channing
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
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.
William Ellery Channing
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
War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ.
William Ellery Channing
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
Be true to your own highest convictions.
William Ellery Channing
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
Life has a higher end, than to be amused
William Ellery Channing
We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers.
William Ellery Channing
One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
William Ellery Channing
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
We never know a greater character unless there is in ourselves something congenial to it.
William Ellery Channing
Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.
William Ellery Channing
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
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
A man might pass for insane who should see things as they are.
William Ellery Channing
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
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
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
Precept is instruction written in the sand the tide flows over it and the record is gone example is graven on the rock, and the lesson is not soon lost.
William Ellery Channing