William Ellery Channing: Trending quotes

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William Ellery Channing: 142 quotes2 likes

“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

"Remarks on the Character and Writings of Fénelon" (1843)

“It was religion, which, by teaching men their near relation to God, awakened in them the consciousness of their importance as individuals. It was the struggle for religious rights, which opened their eyes to all their rights. It was resistance to religious usurpation, which led men to withstand political oppression. It was religious discussion, which roused the minds of all classes to free and vigorous thought.”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 498

“Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important, at the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves. They little suspect its extent, as little as the savage apprehends the energy which the mind is created to exert on the material world.”

William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

“Government, the peace-officer at home, breathes war abroad, organizes it into a science, reduces it to a system, makes it a trade, and applauds it as if it were the most honorable work of nations.”

William Ellery Channing

War (1816)

“Many a man, who has gone but a few miles from home, understands human nature better, detects motives and weighs character more sagaciously, than another who has travelled over the known world, and made a name by his reports of different countries. It is force of thought which measures intellectual, and so it is force of principle which measures moral greatness.”

William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

“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.”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 493

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

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 210

“Compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us with firm and cheerful trust endure all trials, discharge all duties, accept all sacrifices, fulf1ll the law of universal and impartial love, and adopt as our own that cause of truth, righteousness, humanity, liberty, and holiness, — which being the cause of the All-Good, cannot but triumph over all powers of evil. Let us rise into blest assurance that everywhere and forever we are enfolded, penetrated, guarded, guided, kept by the power of the Father and Friend, who can never forsake us; and that all spirits who have begun to seek, know, love, and serve the All-Perfect One on earth shall be reunited in a celestial home, and be welcomed together into the freedom of the universe, and the perpetual light of His presence.”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 17

“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.”

William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

“There is but a very minute portion of the creation which we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification for the body; but the whole creation may be used to minister to the sense of beauty.”

William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

“The deliberate, solemn conviction of good men through the world, that slavery is a grievous wrong to human nature, will make itself felt. To increase this moral power is every man's duty. To embody and express this great truth is in every man's power; and thus every man can do something to break the chain of the slave.”

William Ellery Channing

Slavery (1835)

“A genuine, enlightened patriot discerns, that the welfare of his own country is involved in the general progress of society; and, in the character of a patriot, as well as of a Christian, he rejoices in the liberty and prosperity of other communities, and is anxious to maintain with them the relations of peace and amity.”

William Ellery Channing

War (1816)

“Compassionate Saviour! We welcome Thee to our world, We welcome Thee to our hearts. We bless Thee for the Divine goodness Thou hast brought from heaven; for the souls Thou hast warmed with love to man, and lifted up in love to God; for the efforts of divine philanthropy which Thou hast inspired; and for that hope of a pure celestial life, through which Thy disciples triumph over death.”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 85

“O, for a voice of power to arouse the human spirit from its death in life of animality, to quicken it with a fit consciousness of its own nature, to lift it to an adequate comprehension of the purposes for which the sublime thoughts of God, of duty, of disinterested love, of heaven are opened within!”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 317

“The sages and heroes of history are receding from us, and history contracts the record of their deeds into a narrow and narrower page. But time has no power over the name and deeds and words of Jesus Christ.”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 61

“He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may. You may clothe him with rags, may immure him in a dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks. But he is still great.”

William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

“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.”

William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

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

William Ellery Channing

"Unitarian Christianity", an address to The First Independent Church of Baltimore (5 May 1819)

“Real greatness has nothing to do with a man’s sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects which he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little.”

William Ellery Channing

Source: Self-Culture (1838)

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

William Ellery Channing

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 239.