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18 collected words

Charles Mackay

Born 1814 AD; death year unknown

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

▷ Play this voiceSearch these words ↗Place in time ↗truthjusticelovetimedeathnatureknowledgemind

Quotations and sayings

07c. 1814 AD
I lay in sorrow, deep distressed: My grief a proud man heard; His looks were cold, he gave me gold, But not a kindly word. My sorrow passed,—I paid him back The gold he gave to me; Then stood erect and spoke my thanks, And blessed his charity. I lay in want, in grief and pain: A poor man passed my way; He bound my head, he gave me bread, He watched me night and day. How shall I pay him back again, For all he did to me? Oh, gold is great, but greater far Is Heavenly Sympathy.
Charles Mackay / quote
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09c. 1814 AD
I heard the language of the trees, In the noons of the early summer; As the leaves were moved like rippling seas By the wind—a constant comer. It came and it went at its wanton will; And evermore loved to dally, With branch and flower, from the cope of the hill To the warm depths of the valley. The sunlight glow’d; the water flow’d; The birds their music chanted, And the words of the trees on my senses fell— By a spirit of Beauty haunted:— Said each to each, in mystic speech:— “The skies our branches nourish;— The world is good,—the world is fair,— Let us enjoy and flourish!” Again I heard the steadfast trees; The wintry winds were blowing; There seem’d a roar as of stormy seas, And of ships to the depths down-going. And ever a moan through the woods was blown, As the branches snapp’d asunder, And the long boughs swung like the frantic arms Of a crowd in affright and wonder, Heavily rattled the driving hail; And storm and flood combining, Laid bare the roots of mighty oaks Under the shingle twining. Said tree to tree, “These tempests free Our sap and strength shall nourish; Though the world be hard—though the world be cold— We can endure and flourish.”
Charles Mackay / quote
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11c. 1814 AD
In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.
Charles Mackay / quote
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13c. 1814 AD
Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled.
Charles Mackay / quote
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