“Another powerful principle of our nature, which is the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for triumph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impatient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and control.”
War (1816)
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William Ellery Channing 71
United States Unitarian clergyman 1780–1842Related quotes

Letter to the Committee of Merchants in London (6 June 1766) http://www.virginia1774.org/GMMerchants.html

"Science and Religion" (1939-1941), p. 23 http://books.google.com/books?id=Q1UxYzuI2oQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q&f=false
1950s, Out of My Later Years (1950)

Letter to Abigail Adams (22 May 1777), as quoted in And the War Came: The Slavery Quarrel and the American Civil War https://books.google.com/books?id=WbFznb7PSGsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, by Donald J. Meyers
1770s

"We are Power" speech (1980)

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter One, p. 7