Quotes from William Ellery Channing

Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.

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

Let us aspire towards this living confidence, that it is the will of God to unfold and exalt without end the spirit that entrusts itself to Him in well-doing as to a faithful Creator.

Other blessings may be taken away, but if we have acquired a good friend by goodness, we have a blessing which improves in value when others fail.

Home - the nursery of the Infinite.

We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers.

I laugh, for hope hath a happy place with me; If my boat sinks, 'tis to another sea.

The great hope of society is in individual character

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

The world is governed by opinion.

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.

Knowledge is essential to freedom.

The home is the chief school of human virtues.

The hills are reared, the seas are scooped in vain If learning's altar vanish from the plain.

It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.

May your life preach more loudly than your lips.

Error is discipline through which we advance.

Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.

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.

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.

Books are true levelers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.

Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life

It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions , from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence.

How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.