George MacDonald Quotes

Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.

My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life itself - not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest.

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.

Religion is life essential.

The first thing a kindness deserves is acceptance, the second, transmission.

I am an optimistic fatalist. This world and all its beginnings will pass on into something better.

In the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; what men call death is but a shadow.

A man's real belief is that which he lives by. What a man believes is the thing he does, not the thing he thinks.

No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were born in the wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have "learned in suffering what they taught in song." In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterwards wrote, and we may thank Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim's Progress. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make pre-eminent use of a person, He put them in the fire.

I tell you, there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!

We must do the thing we must Before the thing we may; We are unfit for any trust Till we can and do obey.

The mind of the many is not the mind of God.

The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom of truth and love.

God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity still in the cloud, the oil still in the earth.

To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.

I learned that it is better, a thousandfold , for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it.

I saw thee ne'er before; I see thee never more; But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one, Have made thee mine, till all my years are done.

In the hearts of witches, love and hate lie close together and often tumble over each other.

It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is, when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today, that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you to leave the future to Him, and mind the present.

How many people would like to be good, if only they might be good without taking trouble about it! They do not like goodness well enough to hunger and thirst after it, or to sell all that they have that they may buy it; they will not batter at the gate of the kingdom of heaven; but they look with pleasure on this or that aerial castle of righteousness, and think it would be rather nice to live in it.

No man can make haste to be rich without going against the will of God, in which case it is the one frightful thing to be successful.

To the dim and bewildered vision of humanity, God's care is more evident in some instances than in others; and upon such instances men seize, and call them providences. It is well that they can; but it would be gloriously better if they could believe that the whole matter is one grand providence.

In moments of doubt I cry, ‘Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?’ ‘Whence then came thy dream?’ answers Hope.

All is loss that comes between us and Christ.

When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when it was gone, they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, they felt as if it had never gone.

We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' What is that, grandmother?' To understand other people.' Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.

The ruin of a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he has laid, build upon it wood, hay, and stubble, fit only to be burnt. Therefore, if only to avoid his worst foes, his admirers, a man should avoid system. The more correct a system the worse will it be misunderstood; its professed admirers will take both its errors and their misconceptions of its truths, and hold them forth as its essence.

If you care to see God, be pure. If you will not be pure, you will grow more and more impure.

I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.

People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.

Attitudes are more important than facts.

What does God want me to do?”, not “What will God do if I do so and so?

But when we are following the light, even its extinction is a guide.

Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom.

They will pressure you into doing things that may be unsafe, use your good judgment, and remember, 'I would rather be laughed at, than cried for.'

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.

We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well.

You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on water - an inch deep and then the mud.

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

He (God) can be revealed only to the child; perfectly, to the pure child only. All the discipline of the world is to make men children, that God may be revealed to them.

To give truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation.

God will not take shelter behind a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither a schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in Heaven.

Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam.

Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

Come, come to Him who made thy heart; Come weary and oppressed; To come to Jesus is thy part; His part, to give thee rest.

I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about his plans — I do not say for thinking about them.

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.

The boy should enclose and keep, as his life, the old child at the heart of him, and never let it go. He must still, to be a right man, be his mother's darling, and more, his father's pride, and more. The child is not meant to die, but to be forever fresh born.