209 Quotes by Charles Kingsley

I want you to look and think. I want every one to look and think. Half the misery in the world comes first from not looking, and then from not thinking. And I do not want you to be miserable.

Greatness? I have tasted that cup within the last twelve months; do I not know that it is sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly?

Never, if possible, lie down at night without being able to say: I have made one human being at least a little wiser, or a little happier, or at least a little better this day.

How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none... And no one has a right to say that no water babies exist till they have seen no water babies existing, which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water babies.

It’s all in the day’s work, as the huntsman said when the lion ate him.

Look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still – that up above beyond the cloud is still sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky.

Blow freshly, freshlier yet, thou good trade-wind, of whom it is written that He makes the winds His angels, ministering breaths to the heirs of His salvation. Blow freshlier yet, and save, if not me from death, yet her from worse than death. Blow on, and land me at her feet, to call the lost lamb home, and die!

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.

Toil is the true knight’s pastime.