KINGSLEY, Charles (1819-1875), English clergyman and novelist
Books
We ought to reverence books; to look on them as useful and mighty things.—If they are good and true, whether they are about religion, politics, farming, trade, law, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things—the teacher of all truth.
Except a living man. there is nothing more wonderful than a book! a message to us 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, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.
Chivalry
The age of chivlary is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth.
Common Sense
He was one of those men who possess almost every gift, except the gift of the power to use them.
Duty
Every duty that is bidden to wait comes back with seven fresh duties at its back.
Do today's duty, fight today'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.
This is the feeling that gives a man true courage—the feeling that he has a work to do at all costs; the sense of duty.
Example
Nothing is so infectious as example.
Indigestion
How many serious family quarrels, marriages out of spite, and alterations of wills, might have been prevented by a gentle dose of blue pill!—What awful instances of chronic dyspepsia in the characters of Hamlet and Othello! Banish dyspepsia and spirituous liquors from society, and you have no crime, or at least so little that you would not consider it worth mentioning.
Kindness
Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to 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, or a little happier, or at least a little better this day."
Labor
Do what thou dost as if the earth were heaven, and thy last day the day of judgment.
Liberty
There are two freedoms, the false where one is free to do what he likes, and the true where he is free to do what he ought.
Misery
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.
Nature
Study nature as the countenance of God.
Plagiarism
No earnest thinker is a plagiarist pure and simple. He will never borrow from others that which he has not already, more or less, thought out for himself.
Present
Do today's duty, fight today's temptation; do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.
Religion
It has been said that true religion will make a man a more thorough gentleman than all the courts in Europe, And it is true that you may see simple laboring men as thorough gentlemen as any duke, simply because they have learned to fear God; and, fearing him, to restrain themselves, which is the very root and essence of all good breeding.
What I want is, not to possess religion, but to have a religion that shall possess me.
Selfishness
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. May God keep our hearts pure from that selfishness which is the root of all sin.
Style
If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.
Truth
Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their divineness by sick beds, and in everyday work, and do not darken your mind with intellectual puzzles, which may breed disbelief, but can never breed vital religion or practical usefulness.
