Top 50 David Livingstone Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Fear God and work hard.”

— David Livingstone

Featured in: Work Hard Quotes

2. “I’ll go anywhere as long as it’s forward.”

— David Livingstone

Featured in: Journey Quotes

3. “If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?”

— David Livingstone

4. “I’d rather be in the heart of Africa in the will of God, than on the throne of England, out of the will of God.”

— David Livingstone

5. “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

Featured in: Christian Motivational Quotes, Sunday Morning Quotes

6. “God had only one Son, and He was a missionary.”

— David Livingstone

7. “Sympathy is no substitute for action.”

— David Livingstone

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

— David Livingstone

9. “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.”

— David Livingstone

10. “If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

— David Livingstone

11. “I am immortal till my work is accomplished.”

— David Livingstone

12. “The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet.”

— David Livingstone

13. “I am willing to go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere-provided it be forward.”

— David Livingstone

14. “There is one safe and happy place, and that is in the will of God.”

— David Livingstone

15. “I am a missionary, heart and soul.”

— David Livingstone

16. “I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which he made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”

— David Livingstone

17. “Christ alone can save the world, but Christ cannot save the world alone.”

— David Livingstone

18. “I am a missionary, heart and soul. God had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. I am a poor, poor imitation of Him, or wish to be. In this service I hope to live; in it I wish to die!”

— David Livingstone

19. “Death alone will put a stop to my effort!”

— David Livingstone

20. “Oh, that I could dedicate my all to God. This is all the return I can make Him.”

— David Livingstone

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

— David Livingstone

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

— David Livingstone

23. “I have found that I have no unusual endowments of intellect, but this day I resolve that I will be an uncommon Christian.”

— David Livingstone

24. “If success attend me, grant me humility; If failure, resignation to Thy will.”

— David Livingstone

25. “And although I see few results, future missionaries will see conversions following every sermon. May they not forget the pioneers who worked in the thick gloom with few rays to cheer, except such as flow from faith in the precious promises of God’s Word.”

— David Livingstone

26. “I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of God. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it I shall most promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time or eternity.”

— David Livingstone

27. “Education has been given us from above for the purpose of bringing to the benighted the knowledge of the Saviour.”

— David Livingstone

28. “Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave-trade carries the trader? I shall open up a path to the interior or perish.”

— David Livingstone

29. “Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give.”

— David Livingstone

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

— David Livingstone

31. “He who died for us, and Whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. We should have grace to follow in His steps.”

— David Livingstone

32. “Self-deception helps us deceive.”

— David Livingstone

33. “In this service I hope to live; in it I wish to die!”

— David Livingstone

34. “This generation can only reach this generation.”

— David Livingstone

35. “May the time come when rich men and great men would think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries in Africa, instead of spending their money on hounds and horses.”

— David Livingstone

36. “Shall I tell you what supported me through all those years of exile among a people whose language I could not understand and whose attitude towards me we always uncertain and often hostile? It was this: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”.”

— David Livingstone

37. “There is a Ruler above, and His Providence guides all things. He is our Friend and has plenty of work for all His people to do. It is such a blessing and a privilege to be led into His work instead of into the service of the hard taskmasters – the Devil and sin.”

— David Livingstone

38. “Anywhere, provided it be forward – farther still farther into the night.”

— David Livingstone

39. “It is far easier to travel than to write about it.”

— David Livingstone

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

— David Livingstone

41. “If you knew the satisfaction of performing a duty, as well as the gratitude to God which the missionary must always feel in being chosen for so noble and sacred a calling, you would feel no hesitation in embracing it.”

— David Livingstone

42. “It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked upon by most of those to whom our lives are devoted as having some sinister object in view.”

— David Livingstone

43. “I will try and remember always to approach God in secret with as much reverence in speech, posture, and behavior as in public. Help me, Thou who knowest my frame and pitiest as a father his children.”

— David Livingstone

44. “It is my desire to show my attachment to the cause of Him who died for me by devoting my life to His service.”

— David Livingstone

45. “Providence seems to call me to the regions beyond.”

— David Livingstone

46. “With others arguments are useless, and the only answer I care to give is the remark of an English sailor, who, on seeing slave-traders actually at their occupation, said to his companion, “Shiver my timbers, mate, if the devil don’t catch these fellows, we might as well have no devil at all.”

— David Livingstone

47. “To be aroused in the dark by five feet of cold, green snake gliding over one’s face is unpleasant.”

— David Livingstone

48. “The mere animal pleasure of travelling in a wild unexplored country is also great. The effect of travel on a man whose heart is in the right place is that the mind is made more self-reliant: it becomes more confident of its own resources, there is greater presence of mind.”

— David Livingstone

49. “Fastings and vigils without a special object in view are time run to waste.”

— David Livingstone

50. “19th March, 1872. – Birthday. My Jesus, my king, my life, my all; I again dedicate my whole self to Thee. Accept me, and grant, Gracious Father, that ere this year is gone I may finish my task. In Jesus’ name I ask it. Amen, so let it be.”

— David Livingstone