William Channing Quotes (52 Quotes)


    To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.

    The great end in religious instruction, is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs not to bind them by ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions, but to prepare them for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their decision not to burden memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought.

    It is a greater work to educate a child, in the true and larger sense of the word, than to rule a state.

    Courage considered in itself or without reference to its causes, is no virtue, and deserves no esteem

    He is to be educated not because he's to make shoes, nails, and pins, but because he is a man.


    The more a person analyzes his inner self, the more insignificant he seems to himself. This is the first lesson of wisdom. Let us be humble, and we will become wise. Let us know our weakness, and it will give us power.

    No calculations of interest, no schemes of policy can do the work of love, of the spirit of human brotherhood. There can be no peace without but through peace within.


    What is mysterious, secret, unknown, cannot at the same time be known as an object of faith.

    Through the vulgar error of undervaluing what is common, we are apt indeed to pass these by as of little worth. But as in the outward creation, so in the soul, the common is the most precious.

    But the ground of a man's sic culture lies in his nature, not in his calling. His powers are to be unfolded on account of their inherent dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated, because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nail, or pins.

    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.


    Perhaps in our presence, the most heroic deed on earth is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.

    Christianity is not only confirmed by miracles, but is in itself, in its very essence, a miraculous religion.

    The less of government the better, if society were kept in peace and prosperity.



    Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.

    To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably.

    Happily in this community we all are bred and born to work and this honorable mark, set on us all, should bind together the various portions of the community.

    I do and I must reverence human nature. I bless it for its kind affections. I honor it for its achievements in science and art, and still more for its examples of heroic and saintly virtue. These are marks of a divine origin and the pledges of a celestial inheritance and I thank God that my own lot is bound up with that of the human race.

    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. These are periods when...to dare is the highest wisdom.

    Literature -- the expression of a nation's mind in writing.

    It the soul is truly an image of the infinity of God, and no words can do justice to its grandeur.

    Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent but these are all poor and worthless compared with the common light which the sun sends into all our windows, which pours freely, impartially over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western sky and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few.

    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.

    Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books. We believe that God, when he speaks to the human race, conforms, if we may so say, to the established rules of speaking and writing. How else would the Scriptures avail us more, than if communicated in an unknown tongue

    Innocent amusements are such as excite moderately, and such as produce a cheerful frame of mind, not boisterous mirth such as refresh, instead of exhausting, the system such as recur frequently, rather than continue long such as send us back to our daily duties invigorated in body and spirit such as we can partake of in the presence and society of respectable friends such as consist with and are favorable to a grateful piety such as are chastened by self-respect, and are accompanied with the consciousness that life has a higher end than to be amused.

    The wise only possess ideas, the great part of mankind are possessed by them.

    The only God whom our thoughts can rest on, our hearts cling to, and our conscience can recognize, is the God whose image dwells in our own souls.

    Of all treasons against humanity, there is no one worse than his who employs great intellectual force to keep down the intellect of his less favored brothers

    A single hour a day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.

    The divine attributes are first developed in ourselves, and thence transferred to our Creator. The idea of God, sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spiritual nature, purified and enlarged to infinity. In ourselves are the elements of the Divinity.

    A wail in the wind is all I hearA voice of woe for a lover's loss.

    War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love.

    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.

    Let us teach that the honor of a nation consists not in the forced submission of other states, but in equal laws and free institutions, in cultivated fields and prosperous cities in the development of intellectual and moral power, in the diffusion of knowledge, in magnanimity and justice, in the virtues and blessings of peace.

    Beauty is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds to the numberless flowers of the Spring it waves in the branches of the trees and in the green blades of grass it haunts the depths of the earth and the sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone. And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and the setting sun all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple and those people who are alive to it can not lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side.

    We ought, indeed, to expect occasional obscurity in such a book at the Bible . . . but God's wisdom is a pledge that whatever is necessary for us , and necessary for salvation, is revealed too plainly to be mistaken.

    I have expressed my strong interest in the mass of the people and this is founded, not on their usefulness to the community, so much as on what they are in themselves.... Indeed every man (sic), in every condition, is great. It is only our own diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as a man, be he where or what he may. The grandeur of his nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions.

    Man's spiritual nature is no dream of theologians to vanish before the light of natural science. It is the grandest reality on earth.

    The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts.

    The distinctions of society vanish before the light of these truths. I attach myself to the multitude, not because they are voters and have political power but because they are (human), and have within their reach the most glorious prizes of humanity. . . . Self-culture, the care which every (person) owes to (oneself), to the unfolding . . . of (one's) nature. . . .

    We do not pretend to know the whole nature and properties of God, but still we can form some clear ideas of him, and can reason from these ideas as justly as from any other. The truth is, that we cannot be said to comprehend any being whatever, not the simplest plant or animal. All have hidden properties. Our knowledge of all is limited.

    Health is the working man's fortune, and he ought to watch over it more than the capitalist over his largest investments. Health lightens the efforts of body and mind. It enables a man to crowd much work into a narrow compass. Without it, little can be earned, and that little by slow, exhausting toil.

    To do God's will as fast as it is made known to us, to inquire hourly -- I had almost said each moment -- what He requires of us, and to leave ourselves, our friends, and every interest at His control, with a cheerful trust that the path which He marks out leads to our perfection and to Himself, -- this is at once our duty and happiness and why will we not walk in the plain, simple way

    The more I examine Christianity, the more I am struck with its universality. I see in it a religion made for all regions and all times, for all classes and all stages of society.

    The greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire.

    One of the tremendous evils of the world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands.


    More William Channing Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Nature - Wisdom & Knowledge - God - Soul - Mind - War & Peace - Power - Society & Civilization - Love - Conscience - Science - Christianity - Truth - Beauty - Money & Wealth - Vice & Virtue - Body - Joy & Excitement - View All William Channing Quotations

    Related Authors


    - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Page 1 of 2 1 2

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections