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William Ellery Channing Quotes
1780–1842 United States
William Ellery Channing (April 7 1780 – October 2 1842) was the foremost Unitarian theologian and preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century.
United States Religious leaders Theologians Also known as: Channing, William Ellery, W. E. Channing
Random William Ellery Channing quote
154 quotes
God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.
Religious instruction should aim chiefly to turn men’s aspirations and efforts to that perfection of the soul, which constitutes it a bright image of God.
Likeness to God (1828)
Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.
We must watch over pious impressions, and cultivate them, or they will never become vigorous and enduring.
We doubt whether a man ever brings his faculties to bear with their whole force on a subject, until he writes upon it.
There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when...to dare, is the highest wisdom.
The Union (1829)
All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene.
Emancipation (1840)
Labor is discovered to be the grand conqueror, enriching and building up nations more surely than the proudest battles.
War (1816)
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
Review of The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (1827)
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.
Self-Culture (1838)
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
Inward improvements have a worth and dignity in themselves quite distinct from the power they give over outward things.
We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers.
It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions, from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence.
Thank Him for health. Consecrate it as His trust to innocent enjoyment, manly effort, social usefulness, and preparation for an honorable and holy career.
The greatest thoughts are wronged, if not linked to beauty; and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arranged in this their natural and fit attire.
Likeness to God is the supreme gift.
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.
There is but one true good for a spiritual being, and this is found in its perfection. Men are slow to see this truth; and yet it is the key to God's providence, and to the mysteries of life.
True religion consists in proposing, as our great end, a growing likeness to the Supreme Being. Its noblest influence consists in making us more and more partakers of the Divinity.
Likeness to God (1828)
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