William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780 – October 2, 1842) was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton (1786–1853), one of Unitarianism’s leading theologians. Channing was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker in the liberal theology of the day. His religion and thought were among the chief influences on the New England Transcendentalists although he never countenanced their views, which he saw as extreme. These William Ellery Channing quotes will inspire you in life.
Best William Ellery Channing Quotes
- “Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” – William Ellery Channing
- “One of the tremendous evils of the world is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Reading is the royal road to intellectual eminence…Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past times. Genius is not embalmed in them, but lives in them perpetually.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.” – William Ellery Channing, William Ellery Channing quotes about faith
- “O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness” – William Ellery Channing
- “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
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
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“Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.” – William Ellery Channing
- “The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.” – William Ellery Channing
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “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
- “The home is the chief school of human virtues.” – 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
- “God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.” – William Ellery Channing
- “It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind’s dignity.” – William Ellery Channing
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“Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life” – William Ellery Channing
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “The great hope of society is in individual character” – William Ellery Channing
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.” – 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
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.” – William Ellery Channing
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Knowledge is essential to freedom.” – William Ellery Channing
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“Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speeds towards it.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.” – William Ellery Channing
- “The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled underfoot.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feelings, reviews the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human mature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and softest feelings, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life.” – William Ellery Channing
- “I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.” – William Ellery Channing
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“Mistakes and errors are the disciplines through which we advance.” – 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
- “In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.” – 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
- “The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.” – 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
- “No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.” – William Ellery Channing
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“May your life preach more loudly than your lips.” – William Ellery Channing
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “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.” – William Ellery Channing
- “Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.” – William Ellery Channing
