Charles Kingsley Quotes

       Charles Kingsley
       1819 - 1875
      
       Charles Kingsley, the son of a vicar of Holne in Devon, waseducated at King's College, London, and Magdalene College, Cambridge, he became curate of Eversley in Hampshire in 1842.
      
       As a young man, Kingsley was influenced by The Kingdom of Christ (1838) by Frederick Denison Maurice. Originally intended for the legal profession, he changed his mind and chose to pursue a ministry in the church.
      
       In 1850 Kingsley novel Alton Locke was published. The book attempted to expose the social injustice suffered by agricultural labourers and workers in the clothing trade. In Alton Locke Kingsley also describes the Chartist campaign that he was involved with in the 1840s.
      
       Kingsley's life was written by his widow in 1877, entitled Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life, and presents a very touching and beautiful picture of her husband, but perhaps hardly does justice to his humour, his wit, his overflowing vitality and boyish fun.

He was one of those men who possess almost every gift, except the gift of the power to use them.     Topics: Apathy Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message to us from human souls we never saw, and yet these arouse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.     Topics: Books, Comfort Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; do noble things, not dream them all day long; and so make life, death, and that vast forever one grand, sweet song.     Topics: Character 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.     Topics: Charity, Romance 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.     Topics: Diligence, Self-control, Virtue I do not want merely to possess a faith, I want a faith that possesses me.     Topics: Faith 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.     Topics: Friendship It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, can never know what true friendship means.     Topics: Friendship The world is God's world, after all.     Topics: God 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.     Topics: Happiness, Comfort It is not darkness you are going to, for God is Light. It is not lonely, for Christ is with you. It is not unknown country, for Christ is there.     Topics: Heaven There's no use doing a kindness if you do it a day too late.     Topics: Kindness