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. I belong to this family. I am bound to it… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation. — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor and worthless compared with the… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power. — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
To give a generous hope to a man of his own nature, is to enrich him immeasurably. — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
No man receives the full culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and there is no condition… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
Ideas are the mightiest influence on earth. One great thought breathed into a man may regenerate him. — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy,… — William Ellery Channing Copy Share Image
