Top 15 Charles Mackay Quotes

I wear the cap and he the crown;— What of that? I sleep on straw and he on down;— What of that? And he's the king and I'm the clown;— What of that? If happy I, — and wretched he, — Perhaps the king would change with me!

The king can drink the best of wine; So can I: And has enough when he would dine — So have I; He cannot order rain or shine; Nor can I. Then, where's the difference — let me see — Betwixt my lord the king and me?

The smallest effort is not lost, Each wavelet on the ocean tost Aids in the ebb-tide or the flow; Each rain-drop makes some floweret blow; Each struggle lessens human woe.

There’s a good time coming, boys! A good time coming. We may not live to see the day, But earth shall glisten in the ray Of the good time coming. Cannon-balls may aid the truth But thought’s a weapon stronger;
We’ll win our battles by its aid, Wait a little longer.

"What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour? Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand If the bright morning dawns upon the land."

Old Tubal Cain was a man of might In the days when earth was young.

Some love to roam o’er the dark sea’s foam,
Where the shrill winds whistle free.

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men!

They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide The sun’s meridian glow; The heel of a priest may tread thee down, And a tyrant work thee woe: But never a truth has been destroyed; They may curse it, and call it crime; Pervert and betray, or slander and slay Its teachers for a time. But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost, And justice shall be done.

Cleon hath a million acres,— ne’er a one have I; Cleon dwelleth in a palace, — in a cottage I.

But among all the instances of the interference of governments with men’s hair, the most extraordinary, not only for its daring, but for its success, is that of Peter the Great, in 1705. By this time fashion had condemned the beard in every other country in Europe, and with a voice more potent than popes or emperors, had banished it from civilised society. But this only made the Russians cling more fondly to their ancient ornament, as a mark to distinguish them from foreigners, whom they hated.

The prophecies of Nostradamus consist of upwards of a thousand stanzas, each of four lines, and are to the full as obscure as the oracles of old. They take so great a latitude, both as to time and space, that they are almost sure to be fulfilled somewhere or other in the course of a few centuries.

Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity.

An epidemic terror of the end of the world has several times spread over the nations. The most remarkable was that which seized Christendom about the middle of the tenth century. Numbers of fanatics appeared in France, Germany, and Italy at that time, preaching that the thousand years prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the world’s duration were about to expire, and that the Son of Man would appear in the clouds to judge the godly and the ungodly. The delusion appears to have been discouraged by the Church, but it nevertheless spread rapidly among the people.

For more than a thousand years the art of alchymy captivated many noble spirits, and was believed in by millions. Its origin is involved in obscurity. Some of its devotees have claimed for it an antiquity coeval with the creation of man himself, others, again, would trace it no further back than the time of Noah.