Charles Kingsley quotes

Charles Kingsley was an English clergyman, novelist, and social reformer, recognized for works such as "The Water-Babies." His ideas combined Christian values with social activism, advocating for education and public health reforms. He left a significant mark on Victorian literature and social thought. Here are 86 of his quotes:

The world goes up and the world goes down, the sunshine follows the rain; and yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown can never come over again. (Charles Kingsley)
It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, Can never know what true friendship means. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Pain is no evil, unless it conquers us. View quote
Charles Kingsley
When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green And every goose a swan, lad And every lass a queen Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. View quote
Charles Kingsley
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. View quote
Charles Kingsley
He was one of those men who possess almost every gift, except the gift of the power to use them. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth. View quote
Charles Kingsley
To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all virtue. View quote
Charles Kingsley
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. View quote
Charles Kingsley
In the light of fuller day, Of purer science, holier laws. (Charles Kingsley)
Do you feel that you have lost your way in life? Then God Himself will show you your way. Are you utterly helpless, worn out, body and soul? Then God's eternal love is ready and willing to help you up, and revive you. Are you wearied with doubts and terrors? Then God's eternal light is ready to show you your way; God's eternal peace ready to give you peace. Do you feel yourself full of sins and faults? Then take heart; for God's unchangeable will is, to take away those sins, and purge you from those faults. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Science frees us in many ways...from the bodily terror which the savage feels. But she replaces that, in the minds of many, by a moral terror which is far more overwhelming. View quote
Charles Kingsley
So give me the political economist, the sanitary reformer, the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and miracles. The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard's liners and the electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic and destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating God. View quote
Charles Kingsley
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. View quote
Charles Kingsley
All we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Have thy tools ready. God will find thee work. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way. View quote
Charles Kingsley
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. View quote
Charles Kingsley
The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Feelings are like chemicals, the more you analyze them the worse they smell. (Charles Kingsley)
Nothing like one honest look, one honest thought of Christ upon His cross. That tells us how much He has been through, how much He endured, how much He conquered, how much God loved us, who spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us. Dare we doubt such a God? Dare we murmur against such a God? View quote
Charles Kingsley
The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its individual members. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Whatever may be the mysteries of life and death, there is one mystery which the cross of Christ reveals to us, and that is the infinite and absolute goodness of God. Let all the rest remain a mystery so long as the mystery of the cross of Christ gives us faith for all the rest. View quote
Charles Kingsley
Toil is the true knight's pastime. View quote
Charles Kingsley