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.

— William Ellery Channing

“A clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick and granite and plaster and stucco, however cunningly put together.”

— William Ellery Channing

“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

Knowledge is essential to freedom.

— William Ellery Channing

“The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.”

— William Ellery Channing

“Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake?”

— William Ellery Channing

“Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.”

— William Ellery Channing

“Life is a fragment, a moment between two eternities.”

— William Ellery Channing

War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ.

— William Ellery Channing

No man receives the full culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and there is no condition of life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries this is the cheapest, and the most at hand, and most important to those conditions where coarse labor tends to give grossness to the mind.

— William Ellery Channing

Perhaps in our presence, the most heroic deed on earth is done in some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.

— William Ellery Channing

The domestic relations precede, and in our present existence are worth more than all our other social ties. They give the first throb to the heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Home is the chief school of human virtue. Its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life.

— William Ellery Channing

“Home - the nursery of the Infinite.”

— William Ellery Channing

True love is the parent of humility ...

— William Ellery Channing

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

— William Ellery Channing

But the ground of a man's culture lies in his nature, not in his calling. His powers are to be unfolded on account of their inherent dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated, because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nail, or pins.

— William Ellery Channing

The hills are reared, the seas are scooped in vain If learning's altar vanish from the plain.

— William Ellery Channing

“The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts.”

— William Ellery Channing

“Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof.”

— William Ellery Channing

“A man in earnest finds means or, if he cannot find, creates them.”

— William Ellery Channing

Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life

— William Ellery Channing

“I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.”