David Livingstone Quotes

“Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair.”

One does not know where land ends, and Lake begins: the presence of land-grass proves that this is not always overflowed. _23rd March, 1873._--Men returned at noon. Kabinga is mourning for his son killed by an elephant, and keeps in seclusion. The camp is formed on the left bank of the Chambezé. _24th March._--The people took the canoes away, but in fear sent for them. I got four, and started with all our goods, first giving a present that no blame should follow me. We punted six hours to a little islet without a tree, and no sooner did we land than a pitiless pelting rain came on. We turned up a canoe to get shelter. We shall reach the Chambezé to-morrow. The wind tore the tent out of our hands, and damaged it too; the loads are all soaked, and with the cold it is bitterly uncomfortable. A man put my bed into the bilge, and never said "Bale out," so I was for a wet night, but it turned out better than I expected. No grass, but we made a bed of the loads, and a blanket fortunately put into a bag. _25th March, 1873._--Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God, and go forward. We got off from our miserably small islet of ten yards at 7 A.M., a grassy sea on all sides, with a few islets in the far distance. Four varieties of rushes around us, triangular and fluted, rise from eighteen inches to two feet above the water. The caterpillars seem to eat each other, and a web is made round others; the numerous spiders may have been the workmen of the nest. The wind on the rushes makes a sound like the waves of the sea. The flood extends out in slightly depressed arms of the Lake for twenty or thirty miles, and far too broad to be seen across; fish abound, and ant-hills alone lift up their heads; they have trees on them. Lukutu flows from E. to W. to the Chambezé, as does the Lubanseusi also. After another six hours' punting, over the same wearisome prairie or Bouga, we heard the merry voices of children. It was a large village, on a flat, which seems flooded at times, but much cassava is planted on mounds, made to protect the plants from the water, which stood in places in the village, but we got a dry spot for the tent.

“If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I dont want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

David Livingstone

“All that I am I owe to Jesus Christ, revealed to me in His divine Book.”

David Livingstone

“Without Christ, not one step; with Him, anywhere!”

David Livingstone

“I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose.”

David Livingstone

“I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the kingdom of Christ.”

David Livingstone

“Ill go anywhere as long as its forward.”

David Livingstone

“I will go anywhere, provided it is forward”

David Livingstone

God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.

David Livingstone

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.