“The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering; and is this a greatness which is apt to make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous station?”

—  William Ellery Channing

Self-Culture (1838)

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William Ellery Channing photo
William Ellery Channing71
United States Unitarian clergyman 1780–1842

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