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Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley was an English clergyman, university professor, historian, and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and north-east Hampshire.

He was educated at Helston Grammar School before studying at King's College London, and the University of Cambridge. Charles entered Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1838, and graduated in 1842. He chose to pursue a ministry in the church. From 1844, he was rector of Eversley in Hampshire, and in 1860, he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge.

His writing shows an impulse to reconfigure social realities into dream geographies through Christian idealism.


“Feelings are like chemicals, the more you analyze them the worse they smell.”
Charles Kingsley
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“And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it.”
Charles Kingsley
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“‎"The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always 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.”
Charles Kingsley
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“Do as you would be done by.”
Charles Kingsley
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“[...] his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.”
Charles Kingsley
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“Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist.”
Charles Kingsley
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“There is nothing more wonderful than a book. It may be a message to us from the dead, from human souls we never saw who lived perhaps thousands of miles away, and yet these little sheets of paper speak to us, arouse us, teach us, open our hearts and in turn open their hearts to us like brothers. Without books, God is silent, justice dormant, philosophy lame.”
Charles Kingsley
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“Every duty that is bidden to wait comes back with seven fresh duties at its back.”
Charles Kingsley
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“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.”
Charles Kingsley
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“Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.”
Charles Kingsley
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“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.”
Charles Kingsley
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“In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.A water-baby?  You never heard of a water-baby.  Perhaps not.  That is the very reason why this story was written.  (...)"But there are no such things as water-babies."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.  If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood—as folks sometimes fear he never will—that does not prove that there are no such things as foxes.  And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters in the world.  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; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do.”
Charles Kingsley
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“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.”
Charles Kingsley
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“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.”
Charles Kingsley
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“Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know.”
Charles Kingsley
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“Setiap bangun tidur pagi, berterima kasihlah kepada Tuhan, karena anda memiliki sesuatu yang harus dikerjakan, entah pekerjaan itu anda sukai mau pun tidak.Terpaksa bekerja dan bekerja sebaik-baiknya akan memelihara kesederhanaan anda, kemampuan mengendalikan diri, kerajinan, kegigihan, kepuasan, dan seratus kebajikan lain yang tidak dikenal oleh orang-orang yang berleha-leha.”
Charles Kingsley
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“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.”
Charles Kingsley
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