William Ellery Channing

“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.”

“It is a greater work to educate a child, in the true and larger sense of the word, than to rule a state.”

“We must not waste life in devising means. It is better to plan less and do more.”

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly,...”

“Most joyful let the Poet be, it is through him that all men see.”

“All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought. To work effectively, he must think clearly; to act nobly, he must think nobly.”

“Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.”

“What distinguishes war is, not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand of man.”

“The world is to be carried forward by truth, which at first offends, which wins its way by degrees, which the many hate and would rejoice to crush.”

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds...”

“Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.”

“Reading is the royal road to intellectual eminence...Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past times. Genius i...”

“The home is the chief school of human virtues.”

“How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.”

“Life has a higher end, than to be amused.”

“One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.”

“The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet...”

“We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of ple...”

“The mind, in proportion as it is cut off from free communication with nature, with revelation, with God, with itself, loses its life, just as the body droops when debarred from the air and t...”

“It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.”