“I am a living member of the great Family of All Souls; and I cannot improve or suffer myself without diffusing good or evil around me through an ever-enlarging sphere.”

—  William Ellery Channing

Source: "The Father's Love for Persons" https://www.google.com/books/edition/Select_Discourses_and_Essays/loYfAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22I+am+a+living+member+of+the+great+Family+of+All+Souls%22&pg=PA343&printsec=frontcover, in Selected Discourses and Essays from the works of William Ellery Channing, DD (1895)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 1, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am a living member of the great Family of All Souls; and I cannot improve or suffer myself without diffusing good or …" by William Ellery Channing?
William Ellery Channing photo
William Ellery Channing 71
United States Unitarian clergyman 1780–1842

Related quotes

Emil M. Cioran photo

“I find in myself as much evil as in anyone, but detesting action — mother of all vices — I am the cause of no one's suffering.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

George Eliot photo

“May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)
Context: This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

Socrates photo

“I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Eckhart Tolle photo

“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

“Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.”
The Power of Now (1997)

Baba Amte photo

“I am upset I am very much disappointed when I see within myself a wrong image of myself…. A man can live without fingers, but he cannot live without self-respect…. That is why I took up leprosy work. Not to help anyone but to overcome that fear in my life. That it worked out good for others is a byproduct. But the fact is I did it to overcome fear.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

On his motivation to treat leprosy patients, Page=9
Baba Amte: A Vision of New India

Omar Khayyám photo

“I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Richard Cobden photo

“The hon. Gentleman, and other hon. Gentlemen, are pleased to designate me as the arch enemy of the farmers. Sir, I have as good a right as any hon. Gentleman in this House to identify myself with the order of farmers. I am a farmer's son. The hon. Member for Sussex has been speaking to you as the farmer's friend; I am the son of a Sussex farmer; my ancestors were all yeomen of the class who have been suffering under this system; my family suffered under it, and I have, therefore, as good or a better right than any of you to stand up as the farmer's friend, and to represent his wrongs in this House.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1843/feb/17/distress-of-the-country-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (17 February 1843).
1840s

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

citation needed
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

Luís de Camões photo

“Ever in this world saw I
Good men suffer grave torments,
But even more—
Enough to terrify—
Men who live out evil lives
Reveling in pleasure and in content.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Os bons vi sempre passar
No mundo graves tormentos;
E para mais me espantar,
Os maus vi sempre nadar
Em mar de contentamentos.
"Esparsa ao Desconcerto do Mundo", translation from Luís de Camões and the Epic of the Lusiads (1962) by Henry Hersch Hart, p. 111
Lyric poetry, Songs (redondilhas)

Related topics