Quotes from William Ellery Channing

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.

Life has a higher end, than to be amused

What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!

Life is a fragment, a moment between two eternities.

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

Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.

All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene.

An earnest purpose finds time, or makes it. It seizes on spare moments, and turns fragments to golden account.

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.

Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe.

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.

No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.

The world is to be carried forward by truth, which at first offends, which wins its way by degrees, which the many hate and would rejoice to crush.

God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.

The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.

God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.

The miracles of Christ were studiously performed in the most unostentatious way. He seemed anxious to veil His majesty under the love with which they were wrought.

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

Our affections are our life. We live by them; they supply our warmth.

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.

Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

One anecdote of a man is worth a volume of biography.

The great hope of society is individual character.