Charles Kingsley Quotes

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

All we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.

If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you, what people think of you; and then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch; you will make sin and misery for yourself out of everything God sends you; you will be as wretched as you choose.

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

I do not want merely to possess a faith, I want a faith that possesses me.

Nothing is so infectious as example.

Beauty is God's handwriting — a wayside sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank for it Him.

There's no use doing a kindness if you do it a day too late.

Music. – There is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderful enough: but music is even more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts as words do: it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble feelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how: – it is a language by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as divine, just as blessed.

Make it a rule and pray to God to help you keep it . . . never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say "I have made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this day."

Do today's duty, fight to-day's temptation; and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.

A blessed thing it is to have a friend; one human soul whom we can trust utterly; who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in a day of prosperity and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in days of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our own battle as we can.

Cheerfulness is full of significance: it suggests good health, a clear conscience, and a soul at peace with all human nature.

What is the commonest, and yet the least remembered form of heroism? The heroism of an average mother. Ah! when I think of that broad fact I gather hope again for poor humanity, and this dark world looks bright, this diseased world looks wholesome to me once more, because, whatever else it is or is not full of, it is at least full of mothers.

Have thy tools ready. God will find thee work.

The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.

If you wish to be like a little child, study what a little child could understand — nature; and do what a little child could do — love.

The men whom I have seen succeed best in life always have been cheerful and hopeful men; who went about their business with a smile on their faces; and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men; facing rough and smooth alike as it came.

All but God is changing day by day.

Music has been called the speech of the angels; I will go farther and call it the speech of God Himself.

Life is too short for mean anxieties.

Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message from the dead - from human souls we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away. And yet these, in those little sheets of paper, speak to us, arouse us, terrify us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.

Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back.

Those clouds are angels' robes.