148 Quotes by William Ellery Channing

Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.

The great hope of society is in individual character

Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.

All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene

God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.

Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.

The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.