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 pleasure. – William Ellery Channing
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance. – William Ellery Channing
It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind’s dignity. – William Ellery Channing
Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it. – William Ellery Channing
No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. – William Ellery Channing
It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great. – William Ellery Channing
Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves. – William Ellery Channing
All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene. – William Ellery Channing
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 the cheering light from heaven. – William Ellery Channing
God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth. – William Ellery Channing
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. – William Ellery Channing
Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do. – William Ellery Channing
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. – William Ellery Channing
He who is false to the present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and you will see the effect when the weaving of a life-time is unraveled. – William Ellery Channing
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. – William Ellery Channing
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 thought. – William Ellery Channing
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. – William Ellery Channing
