This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe." - William Ellery Channing
"Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power." - William Ellery Channing
"Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance." - William Ellery Channing
"No evil is intolerable but a guilty conscience." - William Ellery Channing
"No man should part with his own individuality and become that of another." - William Ellery Channing
"Peace is the fairest form of happiness." - William Ellery Channing
"Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours." - William Ellery Channing
"Sincerity, truth, faithfulness, come into the very essence of friendship." - William Ellery Channing
"That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than from eating too little." - 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
"The great duty of God’s children is to love one another. This duty on earth takes the name and form of the law of humanity. We are to recognize all men as brethren, no matter where born, or under what sky, or institution or religion they may live. Every man belongs to the race, and owes a duty to mankind... Men cannot, by combining themselves into narrower or larger societies, sever the sacred, blessed bond which joins them to their kind... The law of humanity must reign; over the assertion of all human rights." - William Ellery Channing
"The great hope of society is in individual character." - William Ellery Channing
"The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard." - William Ellery Channing
"The greatest truths (thoughts) are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul, when arranged in this their natural and fit attire." - William Ellery Channing
"The idea of God is the idea of our own spiritual natures enlarged to infinity." - William Ellery Channing
"The more discussion the better, if passion and personality be eschewed; and discussion, even if stormy, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age." - William Ellery Channing
"The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people’s energy, intellect and virtues." - William Ellery Channing
"The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues... Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom." - William Ellery Channing
"The sense of duty is the fountain of human rights. In other words, the same inward principle which teaches the former bears witness to the latter Duties and rights must stand and fall together." - William Ellery Channing
"The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms." - William Ellery Channing
"There are seasons, in human affairs, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when to dare, is the highest wisdom." - William Ellery Channing
"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, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony." - William Ellery Channing
"True love is the parent of a noble humility." - William Ellery Channing
"War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love." - William Ellery Channing
"We cannot enjoy a friend here. If we are to meet it is beyond the grave. How much of our soul a friend takes with him! We half die in him." - William Ellery Channing
"We never know a greater character until something congenial to it has grown up within ourselves." - William Ellery Channing
"What blessedness it is to dwell amidst this transparent air, which the eye can pierce without limit, amidst these floods of pure, soft, cheering light, under this immeasurable arch of heaven, and in sight of these countless stars! An infinite universe is each moment opened to our view. And this universe is the sing and symbol of Infinite Power, Intelligence, Purity, Bliss, and Love." - William Ellery Channing
"Bigotry dwarfs the soul but shutting out the truth." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Consider and act with reference to the true ends of existence. This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward things we are. To be good is the great thing." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Home is the seminary of all other institutions." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"How often a new affection makes a new man! The sordid, cowering soul turns heroic. The frivolous girl becomes the steadfast martyr of patience and ministration, transfigured by deathless love. The career of bounding impulses turns into an anthem of sacred deeds." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Humility is not a weak and timid quality; it must be carefully distinguished from a groveling spirit. There is such a thing as an honest pride and self-respect. Though we may be servants of all, we should be servile to none." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Impatience never commanded success." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Is there anything so wretched as to look at a man of fine abilities doing nothing?" - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Life, whether in this world or any other, is the sum of our attainment, our experience, our character. The conditions are secondary. In what other world shall we be more surely than we are here?" - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force. The world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to tread those shining coasts which Newton dropped his plummet, and Herschel sailed, a Columbus of the skies." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Morality is the vestibule of religion." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"No more important duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"No piled-up wealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual plane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Not in the achievement, but in the endurance of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite God." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy. The charlatan is verbose and assumptive; the Pharisee is ostentatious, because he is a hypocrite. Pride is the master sin of the Devil; and the Devil is the father of lies." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Skepticism has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been men of faith." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Some people habitually wear sadness, like a garment, and think it a becoming grace. God loves a cheerful worshipper." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Some souls are ennobled and elevated by seeming misfortunes, which then become blessings in disguise." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"The angels may have wider spheres of action, may have nobler forms of duty; but right with them and with us is one and the same thing." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is that fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangement of a boundless Providence." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin