William Ellery Channing
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.Collection: Faith
Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.Collection: Experience
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Nature
The home is the chief school of human virtues.Collection: Home
Life has a higher end, than to be amused.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Smile
The world is governed by opinion.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: Great
Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.Collection: Men
God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.Collection: Intelligence
How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.Collection: Happiness
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.Collection: Knowledge
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.Collection: Strength
Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.
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.
All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene.
Error is discipline through which we advance.
Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
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.
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.
One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.
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.
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.
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.
No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
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.
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.
The great hope of society is in individual character.
Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
He who is false to the present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and you will see the effect when the weaving of a life-time is unraveled.
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony.Collection: Inspirational
May your life preach more loudly than your lips.Collection: I Hate You
Be true to your own highest convictions.Collection: Conviction
One of the tremendous evils of the world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands.Collection: Hands
Whatever you may suffer, speak the truth. Be worthy of the entire confidence of your associates. Consider what is right as to what must be done. It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.Collection: Integrity
Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy lifeCollection: Inspirational
Mistakes and errors are the discipline through which we advance.Collection: Mistake
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.Collection: Freedom
Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.Collection: Sweet
It has often been observed, that those who have the most time at their disposal profit by it the least. A single hour a day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.Collection: Interesting
In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.Collection: Running
To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.Collection: Hope
A man might pass for insane who should see things as they are.Collection: Men
The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Evil