George MacDonald Quotes:

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

Topics: Doe, Want, Want Me

Above all things, I delight in listening to stories, and sometimes in telling them.

Topics: Listening, Stories, Delight

Any faith in Him, however small, is better than any belief about Him, however great.

Topics: Belief

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.

Topics: Love, Life, Friendship, Never Trust Anyone, Trust Issues

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

Topics: Life, Inspire, Wells

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.

Topics: Inspirational, Friendship, Encouragement, Special Friend, Just Thinking Of You

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

Topics: Men, Greed, Liberty, Elected Officials, Governing

Never tell a child 'you have a soul.' Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.

Topics: Children, Soul, Body

Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.

Topics: Friendship, Trust, Tragedy, Whom To Trust, Trust Issues

He may delay because it would not be safe to give us at once what we ask: we are not ready for it. To give ere we could truly receive, would be to destroy the very heart and hope of prayer, to cease to be our Father. The delay itself may work to bring us nearer to our help, to increase the desire, perfect the prayer, and ripen the receptive condition.

Topics: Prayer, Father, Heart

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.

Topics: Forgiveness, Giving, Receiving, Inspirational Forgiveness, Self Forgiveness

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.

Topics: Inspirational, Stress, Practice, Meditation And Yoga, Meditation Life

I find that doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.

Topics: God, Leaving Me, Gods Will

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. How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.

Topics: Adversity, Men, Skills, Storms Of Life, Unfinished Work

Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the one thing hated.

Topics: Hate, Lovely, Hated

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

Topics: Kindness, Acceptance, Firsts, Transmission

It is not the high summer alone that is God's. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man's winters are His - the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness - even 'the winter of our discontent.

Topics: Summer, Winter, Men

All about us, in earth and air, wherever the eye or ear can reach, there is a power ever breathing itself forth in signs, now in daisy, now in a wind-waft, a cloud, a sunset; a power that holds constant and sweetest relation with the dark and silent world within us. The same God who is in us, and upon whose tree we are the buds, if not yet the flowers, also is all about us- inside, the Spirit; outside, the Word. And the two are ever trying to meet in us...

source: - George MacDonald (1978). “The World of George Macdonald: Selections from His Works of Fiction”, Shaw

Topics: Faith, Flower, Inspiration

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.

Topics: Death, Sunset, Literature

"But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, "What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need - the need of Himself?"

source: - George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.128, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Christian, Prayer, Ideas, Representing, Supplies

Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever-unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to Him.

source: - George MacDonald (2016). “Unspoken Sermons, completed: MacDonald's Works”, p.26, VM eBooks

Topics: Leadership, Jesus, Believe

Trust to God to weave your thread into the great web, though the pattern shows it not yet.

Topics: Patterns, Thread, Shows

All things are possible with God, but all things are not easy.

Topics: Easy

For when is the child the ideal child in our eyes and to our hearts? Is it not when with gentle hand he takes his father by the beard, and turns that father's face up to his brothers and sisters to kiss? when even the lovely selfishness of love-seeking has vanished, and the heart is absorbed in loving?

Topics: Brother, Children, Father

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down. For the needs of today we have corresponding strength given. For the morrow we are told to trust. It is not ours yet. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.

Topics: Men, Worry, Needs, Stress And Worry

When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over

Topics: Sympathy, Thinking, World

When we understand the outside of things, we think we have them. Yet the Lord puts his things in subdefined, suggestive shapes, yielding no satisfactory meaning to the mere intellect, but unfolding themselves to the conscience and heart.

Topics: Heart, Thinking, Shapes

In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably, or succeed more miserably.

source: - George MacDonald (2007). “Unspoken Sermons”, p.248, Cosimo, Inc.

Topics: Men, Doe, Succeed, Without God

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.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13293, e-artnow

Topics: God, Men, Giving, Best God

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.

Topics: Men, Worry, Care

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.

Topics: Men, Mind, Bears, Loaded, Burdens Of Life

You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.

Topics: Strong, Dark, Brave, Light And Dark

He who seeks the Father more than anything He can give, is likely to have what he asks, for he is not likely to ask amiss.

Topics: Father, Giving

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.

Topics: Reality, Age, Decay, Ripening, Swelling

A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.

Topics: Men, Doe, Politics

Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool out of you that you will know yourself for one, and begin to be wise.

Topics: Wise, Eye, Fool

Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.

Topics: Evil, Slaying, Annihilation, Evil Things, Evil Dead

As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.

Topics: Sadness, Joy, Sorrow

The truly wise talk little about religion and are not given to taking sides on doctrinal issues. When they hear people advocating or opposing the claims of this or that party in the church, they turn away with a smile such as men yield to the talk of children. They have no time, they would say, for that kind of thing. They have enough to do in trying to faithfully practice what is beyond dispute.

Topics: Wise, Children, Party

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

Topics: Power, Want, Able, Overconsumption

The purposes of God point to one simple end-that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness.

Topics: God, Mean, Simple, Purpose Of God

As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.

Topics: Book, Library, Grows

Past tears are present strength.

source: - James Hogg, R. L. Stevenson, George MacDonald (2014). “Scottish Supernatural Classics: The Three Perils of Man, Thrawn Janet and Other Stories, Phantastes and Lilith”, p.868, Palimpsest Book Production Limited

Topics: Past, Tears

Half of the misery in the world comes from trying to look, instead of trying to be, what one is not.

Topics: Hypocrite, Trying, Looks

No man has the mind of Christ, except him who makes it his business to obey him.

Topics: Men, Mind, Christ

To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth.

Topics: Cleansing, Baths, Sin

To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.

Topics: Thanks, Good Things, Honestly

You doubt because you love truth.

Topics: Doubt, Truth Love

The miracles of Jesus were the ordinary works of his Father, wrought small and swift that we might take them in.

Topics: Jesus, Father, Miracle

One of the good things that come of a true marriage is, that there is one face on which changes come without your seeing them; or rather there is one face which you can still see the same, through all the shadows which years have gathered upon it.

Topics: Anniversary, Marriage, Years, Marriage Anniversary, 50th Anniversary

Obedience is the key to every door.

Topics: Doors, Keys, Obedience

Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have, this day, done one thing because He said, Do it! or once abstained because He said, Do not do it! It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you.

source: - George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.212, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Believe, Asking, Done

It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you.

Topics: Believe, Want, Absurd

My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not; I think thy answers make me what I am.

Topics: Prayer, Thinking, Answers

We can walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good which He is always giving as fast as He can get us able to take it in.

Topics: Giving, Waiting, Able

Anything big enough to occupy our minds is big enough to hang a prayer on.

Topics: Prayer, Mind, Enough

Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.

Topics: Believe, Soul, One Day, Good Souls

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.

Topics: Men, Worry, Bears

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.

Topics: Feelings, Gone

One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

Topics: Spiritual, Passion, Selfishness, Spiritual Nature

The principle part of faith is patience.

Topics: Patience, Principles

Now I want you to think that in life troubles will come, which seem as if they never would pass away. The night and storm look as if they would last forever; but the calm and the morning cannot be stayed; the storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for God is Peace.

Topics: Morning, Heart, Night

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.

Topics: Christian, Song, Fire

Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This in the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest.

Topics: Father, Yoke, Unrest

The first thing in all progress is to leave something behind.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13036, Delphi Classics

Topics: Progress, Firsts, Behinds

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.

Topics: Real, Believe, Men

All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.

Topics: Wise, Children, Heart

A perfect faith would lift us absolutely above fear

Topics: Faith, Perfect

The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.

Topics: Thinking, Giving, Next

Love is the opener as well as closer of eyes.

Topics: Eye, Love Is, Wells

There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection.

Topics: Differences, Growth, Dying

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

Topics: Water, Amusement, Mud

It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.494, e-artnow

Topics: Love, Inspirational, Soul

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.

Topics: Grandmother, People, Anxious

To try to be brave is to be brave.

Topics: Brave, Trying, Be Brave

Afflictions are but the shadows of God's wings.

Topics: God, Wings, Shadow

I write, not for children,but for the child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.

Topics: Children, Writing, Fifty

A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer.

Topics: Freedom, Men, Atoms

No story ever really ends, and I think I know why.

Topics: Thinking, Stories, Ends

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

Topics: Left Alone, Forsaken

The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self.

source: - George MacDonald (1887). “God's Words to His Children: Sermons Spoken and Unspoken”

Topics: Love, Doors, Self

I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.1848, e-artnow

Topics: Thinking, Born, Made

Forgiveness unleashes joy. It brings peace. It washes the slate clean. It sets all the highest values of love in motion.

Topics: Forgiveness, Joy, Clean, Value Of Love

God is nearer to you than any thought or feeling of yours... Do not be afraid.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.1847, e-artnow

Topics: Jesus, Feelings, Jesus Christ

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.

source: - George Macdonald (1870). “The Miracles of Our Lord”, p.56

Topics: Lying, Liberty, Likes

there is no harm in being afraid. The only harm is in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in his face and he will run away.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.1565, e-artnow

Topics: Running, Laughing, Faces

Do not measure God's mind by your own.

source: - George MacDonald (1871). “David Elginbrod”, p.399

Topics: God, Mind

If we do not die to ourselves, we cannot live to God, andhe that does not live to God, is dead.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13403, e-artnow

Topics: Faith, Doe, Christianity, God Is Dead, Christian Life

To be kind neither hurts nor compromises.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13660, e-artnow

Topics: Hurt, Be Kind, Compromise

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

source: - George MacDonald (1985). “The Curate's Awakening”

Topics: Giving, Misinterpretation, Materials, Plentiful

On Good Friday Jesus died But rose again at Eastertide.....Lord, teach us to understand that your Son died to save us not from suffering but from ourselves, not from injustice...but from being unjust. He died that we might live - but live as he lives, by dying as he died who died to himself.

Topics: Friday, Jesus, Son, Good Friday

Beauty and sadness always go together.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Poetry of George MacDonald: A Book of Strife, in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul + Rampolli: Growths from a Long-planted Root + A Hidden Life Collection and Other Poems”, p.95, e-artnow

Topics: Beauty, Sadness, Together, Sadness And Love, Sadness Of Life

It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice.

source: - George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Passion, Heart, Men

We are often unable to tell people what they need to know, because they want to know something else, and would therefore only misunderstand what we said.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.10054, Delphi Classics

Topics: People, Want, Needs

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

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “George MacDonald: The Complete Fantasy Collection - 8 Novels & 30+ Short Stories and Fairy Tales (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, Phantastes, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, Portent, The Lost Princess, Adela Cathcart, Dealings with the Fairies and many more”, p.1346, e-artnow

Topics: Mind, Majority

God hides nothing. His very work from the beginning is revelation--a casting aside of veil after veil, a showing unto men of truth after truth. On and on from fact Divine He advances, until at length in His Son Jesus He unveils His very face.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.6249, Delphi Classics

Topics: God, Jesus, Son

This is and has been the Father's work from the beginning-to bring us into the home of His heart.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13355, e-artnow

Topics: Father, Home, Heart

Every truth must be accompanied by some corresponding act.

Topics: Truth, Corresponding

If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour but the ministering genius of our destruction.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.7819, Delphi Classics

Topics: Prayer, Doe, Genius

We profess to think Jesus the grandest and most glorious of men, yet hardly care to be like him. When we are offered his Spirit, that is, his very nature within us, for the asking, we will hardly take the trouble to ask for it.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.1657, Delphi Classics

Topics: Jesus, Men, Thinking

Never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here; and never fail daily to do that good which lies next to your hand.

source: - "The Way To Win: Showing How To Succeed In Life". Book by John Thomas Dale, 1887.

Topics: Lying, Hands, Next

Fear is faithlessness.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “SIR GIBBIE & DONAL GRANT: The Baronet’s Song and The Shepherd’s Castle (Adventure Classic)”, p.215, e-artnow

Topics: Fear

Those Christians who are very strict in their observances, think a good deal more of the Sabbath than of man, a great deal more of the Bible than of the truth, and ten times more of their creed than of the will of God. Of course, if they heard anyone utter such words as I have just written, they would say he was and atheist.

Topics: Christian, Atheist, Men

Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner.

Topics: Vengeance, Sin, Executioners

I am so tried by the things said about God. I understand God's patience with the wicked, but I do wonder how he can be so patient with the pious!

Topics: God, Wicked, Patient

I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himself to do.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.5907, Delphi Classics

Topics: Religious, Stupidity, Religion, Perplexed

People must not choose their neighbors; they must take the neighbors that God sends them. The neighbor is just the person who is next to you at the moment, the person with whom any business has brought you into contact.

Topics: People, Community, Next

We are not made for law, we are made for love.

Topics: Law, Made

The kingdom of heaven is not come even when God's will is our law; it is fully come when God's will is our will.

Topics: Christian, Prayer, Law, Kingdom Of Heaven

The seed dies into a new life, and so does man.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.2995, Delphi Classics

Topics: Men, Doe, New Life

If we knew as much about heaven as God does, we would clap our hands every time a Christian dies.

Topics: Christian, Hands, Heaven

To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse. The only way to make them good is to be good, remembering well the beam and the mote.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.1127, e-artnow

Topics: People, Trying, Way

A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself.

source: - George MacDonald, Rolland Hein (2004). “Creation in Christ: Unspoken Sermons”, p.115, Regent College Publishing

Topics: Men, Bondage

[God desires] not that He may say to them, "Look how mighty I am, and go down upon your knees and worship," for power alone was never yet worthy of prayer; but that He may say thus: "Look, my children, you will never be strong but with my strength. I have no other to give you. And that you can get only by trusting in me. I can not give it you any other way. There is no other way."

Topics: Strong, Prayer, Children

I want to help you grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when he thought of you first.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.8209, e-artnow

Topics: Beauty, Beautiful, Want, Thoughts Of You

The word doctrine, as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory.

source: - George MacDonald (1994). “An expression of character: the letters of George MacDonald”, Eerdmans Pub Co

Topics: Teaching, Mean, Doctrine

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. (Quoted by C.S.Lewis in Mere Christianity)

Topics: Cottages, Littles, Palaces

Heaven...a place where everything that is not music is silence.

Topics: Silence, Heaven, Music Is

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.

source: - George MacDonald (1893). “The Poetical Works of George MacDonald (Volumes I and II)”, p.333, Library of Alexandria

Topics: Jesus, Heart, Giving

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.'

Topics: Use, May, Pressure, Good Judgment, Great Aviation

Doubt may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.1471, e-artnow

Topics: Encouragement, Doubt, May

I came from God, and I'm going back to God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my life.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.4585, e-artnow

Topics: Gaps, Immortality, Middle

You've got to save your own soul first, and then the souls of your neighbors if they will let you; and for that reason you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that attract people to the hearing of the Word.

source: - George MacDonald (1878). “The Marquis of Lossie”

Topics: People, Soul, Criticism

Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood. . . . Doubts must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13031, Delphi Classics

Topics: Faith, Doors, Doubt

Attitudes are more important than facts.

Topics: Inspiring, Attitude, Inspiration, Contagious Attitudes, New Attitude

Oh, I believe that there is no away; that no love, no life, goes ever from us; it goes as He went, that it may come again, deeper and closer and surer, and be with us always, even to the end of the world.

source: - "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

Topics: Life, Believe, World

To cease to wonder is to fall plumb-down from the childlike to the commonplace—the most undivine of all moods intellectual. Our nature can never be at home among things that are not wonderful to us.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13217, Delphi Classics

Topics: Fall, Home, Intellectual

What God may hereafter require of you, you must not give yourself the least trouble about. Everything He gives you to do, you must do as well as ever you can, and that is the best possible preparation for what He may want you to do next. If people would but do what they have to do, they would always find themselves ready for what came next.

source: - George MacDonald (1880). “Cheerful Words”

Topics: People, Giving, Preparation

It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.5441, e-artnow

Topics: Men, Literature, Growing

This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything.

Topics: Christian, Wise, Men, Christian Faith

Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It does not work in the soul independently of all faculty or qualification there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “THOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE + PAUL FABER, SURGEON + THERE AND BACK - The Complete Series: The Curate's Awakening, The Lady's Confession & The Baron's Apprenticeship”, p.676, e-artnow

Topics: Spiritual, Truth, Soul

One chief cause of the amount of unbelief in the world is tha tthose who have seen something of the glory of Christ set themselves to theorize concerning him rather than to obey him.

Topics: Religion, Causes, World

Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owes its very idea to existence.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13002, Delphi Classics

Topics: Ideas, Existence, Nothingness

I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken an impossibility, undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Lilith”, p.13, Booklassic

Topics: Mind, Speech, Fit

As Christ is the blossom of humanity, so the blossom of every man is Christ perfected in him.

source: - George MacDonald (1891). “Unspoken Sermons: Third Series”, p.47, CCEL

Topics: Men, Humanity, Christ

The Lord never came to deliver men from the consequences of their sins while yet those sins remained...Yet men, loving their sins and feeling nothing of their dread hatefulness, have, consistent with their low condition, constantly taken this word concerning the Lord to mean that he came to save them from the punishment of their sins.

Topics: Taken, Mean, Men

I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about practice. The word "doctrine," as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory.

source: - George MacDonald (1994). “An expression of character: the letters of George MacDonald”, Eerdmans Pub Co

Topics: Christian, Believe, Teaching

It is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, that originates and perfects and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return.

source: - "Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women". Book by George MacDonald, 1858.

Topics: Spring, Two, Giving, Two Loves

The Bible is to me the most precious thing in the world, because it tells me his story; and what good men thought about him who knew him and accepted him.

source: - "An expression of character: the letters of George MacDonald".

Topics: Bible, Jesus, Biblical

...it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.

source: - George Macdonald (2015). “MacDonalds’ Fairy-Tale Treasure Chest”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Strong, Silly, Mean, Clear Eyes, Strength And Beauty

In low theologies, hell is invariably the deepest truth, and the love of God is not so deep as hell.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.2626, e-artnow

Topics: God Love, Hell, Lows

Alas! this time is never the time for self-denial, it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence.

source: - George Macdonald (2016). “Sir Gibbie”, p.30, George Macdonald

Topics: Self, Next, Sides

Division has done more to hide Christ from the view of men than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.11028, e-artnow

Topics: Men, Views, Infidelity

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.

source: - George MacDonald (2012). “Hope of the Gospel”, p.121, tredition

Topics: Children, Men, Discipline

Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.694, e-artnow

Topics: Eye, Blue, Sky

The whole trouble is that we won't let God help us.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.8243, e-artnow

Topics: Letting Go, Independence, Helping, God Help, God Help Us

To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lie against God; to say that it is therefore right, is to lie against the very spirit of God.

source: - George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.271, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Lying, Men, Doe

The Root of All Rebellion: It is because we are not near enough to Thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own different from thine.

source: - George MacDonald, Clive Staples Lewis (1990). “George MacDonald: an anthology”

Topics: Roots, Liberty, Different

Endurance must conquer, where force could not reach.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “George MacDonald: The Complete Fantasy Collection - 8 Novels & 30+ Short Stories and Fairy Tales (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, Phantastes, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, Portent, The Lost Princess, Adela Cathcart, Dealings with the Fairies and many more”, p.444, e-artnow

Topics: Endurance, Conquer, Force

In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might, Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “A Book of Strife in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul”, p.16, Sheba Blake Publishing

Topics: Father, Joy, Sorrow

Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God.

source: - George MacDonald (1867). “Unspoken Sermons”, p.110

Topics: God, Men, Peculiar

I do not myself believe there is any misfortune. What men call such is merely the shadowside of a good.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.5717, e-artnow

Topics: Believe, Men, Misfortunes

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

source: - "The Hope of the Gospel".

Topics: Sin, Grows, Determine

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.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.161, Delphi Classics

Topics: Hero, Men, Doers

Suppose you didn't know him, would that make any difference?' 'No,' said Willie, after thinking a little. 'Other people would know him if I didn't.' 'Yes, and if nobody knew him, God would know him, and anybody God has thought worth making, it's an honor to do anything for.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.4631, e-artnow

Topics: Thinking, Differences, People

The world...is full of resurrections... Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it - the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.

Topics: Night, Darkness, Dawn, Folds

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

Topics: Optimistic, World, This World

The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, and the last duty done.

Topics: Future, Preparation, Done, Preparation For The Future

Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him! That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?

source: - George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.270, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Character, Mind, Maps, Character Of God

But for money and the need of it, there would not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good if divinely used. Give it plenty of air and it is sweet as the hawthorn; shut it up and it cankers and breeds worms.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “THOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE + PAUL FABER, SURGEON + THERE AND BACK - The Complete Series: The Curate's Awakening, The Lady's Confession & The Baron's Apprenticeship”, p.451, e-artnow

Topics: Friendship, Sweet, Money

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.

source: - "The Marquis of Lossie".

Topics: God, Obedience, Leaving Me

It was part of war; men died, more would die, that was past, and what mattered now was the business in hand; those who lived would get on with it. Whatever sorrow was felt, there was no point in talking or brooding about it, much less in making, for form's sake, a parade of it. Better and healthier to forget it, and look to tomorrow.The celebrated British stiff upper lip, the resolve to conceal emotion which is not only embarrassing and useless, but harmful, is just plain commons sense

Topics: War, Men, Past, Stiff Upper Lip

Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.

source: - George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

Topics: Beautiful, Fire, Views

You would not think any duty small, If you yourself were great.

source: - George MacDonald (2012). “The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes —”, p.214, tredition

Topics: Thinking, Duty, Ifs

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.

source: - "MacDonalds’ Fairy-Tale Treasure Chest".

Topics: Hero, Fall, Pride

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

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13002, Delphi Classics

Topics: Life, Men, Reality

God's finger can touch nothing but to mold it into loveliness.

source: - George MacDonald (1989). “Discovering the character of God”, Bethany House Pub

Topics: Mold, Fingers, Loveliness

Each is but a means to an end; in the perfected end we find the intent, and there God — not in the laws themselves, except as his means of revealing himself. For that same reason, human science cannot discover God. For human science is but the backward undoing of the tapestry-web of God's science, it works with its back to him, and is always leaving him — his intent.

source: - "Discovering the character of God".

Topics: Leaving, Evolution, Revelations, Always Leaving

But we believe – nay, Lord we only hope, That one day we shall thank thee perfectly For pain and hope and all that led or drove Us back into the bosom of thy love.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13525, Delphi Classics

Topics: Pain, Believe, One Day

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

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.6068, Delphi Classics

Topics: And Love, Kingdoms, Stage, Truth And Love

O Christ, my life, possess me utterly. Take me and make a little Christ of me. If I am anything but thy father's son, 'Tis something not yet from the darkness won. Oh, give me light to live with open eyes. Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.12938, e-artnow

Topics: Father, Eye, Son, Open Eyes

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.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.6149, e-artnow

Topics: Teaching, Men, Essence

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home”.

Topics: Art, Home, Men

Faith is that which, knowing the Lord's will, goes and does it; or, not knowing it, stands and waits, content in ignorance as in knowledge, because God wills - neither pressing into the hidden future, nor careless of the knowledge which opens the path of action

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.12445, Delphi Classics

Topics: Faith, Ignorance, Knowing

To love righteousness is to make it grow, not to avenge it. Throughout his life on earth, Jesus resisted every impulse to work more rapidly for a lower good.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13612, e-artnow

Topics: Jesus, Earth, Righteousness

It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

Topics: Thinking, Quality Not Quantity, Literature, Quantity And Quality, Exhaustion

Those that hope little cannot grow much.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13288, Delphi Classics

Topics: Littles, Grows

In very truth, a wise imagination, which is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide that man or woman can have; for it is not the things we see the most clearly that influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation. We live by faith, and not by sight.

source: - George MacDonald (1883). “The Imagination, and Other Essays”

Topics: Wise, Eye, Men, Undefined, Clearness

The face of the Son of God, who, instead of accepting the sacrifice of one of his creatures to satisfy his justice or support his dignity, gave himself utterly unto them, and therein to the Father by doing his lovely will; who suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like his, and lead them up to his perfection.

source: - "Epea Aptera: Unspoken Sermons".

Topics: Son, Men, Suffering, Times Of Trouble

There are thousands willing to do great things for one willing to do a small thing.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.6322, e-artnow

Topics: Literature, Great Things, Willing

The direst foe of courage is the fear itself, not the object of it; and the man who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.7720, e-artnow

Topics: Fear, Hero, Men

God Himself - His thoughts, His will, His love, His judgments are men's home. To think His thoughts, to choose His will, to judge His judgments, and thus to know that He is in us, with us, is to be at home.

source: - "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

Topics: Home, Men, Thinking, Shadow Of Death

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

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Poetry of George MacDonald: A Book of Strife, in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul + Rampolli: Growths from a Long-planted Root + A Hidden Life Collection and Other Poems”, p.683, e-artnow

Topics: May

A man must learn to love his children, not because they are his, but because they are children, else his love will be scarcely a better thing at last than the party-spirit of the faithful politician.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.3043, e-artnow

Topics: Children, Party, Men

We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments.... Each, putting his foot in the footprint of the Master, and so defacing it, turns to examine how far his neighbor’s footprint corresponds with that which he still calls the Master’s, although it is but his own.

source: - George MacDonald, Rolland Hein (2004). “Creation in Christ: Unspoken Sermons”, p.336, Regent College Publishing

Topics: Christian, Feet, Looks

Those are not the tears of repentance!... Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “George MacDonald: The Complete Fantasy Collection - 8 Novels & 30+ Short Stories and Fairy Tales (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, Phantastes, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, Portent, The Lost Princess, Adela Cathcart, Dealings with the Fairies and many more”, p.1571, e-artnow

Topics: Father, Home, Self, Prodigals

There is no slave but the creature that wills against its Creator.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.10191, Delphi Classics

Topics: Slave, Creator, Creatures

There are things that must be done in faith, else they never have being.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.9068, Delphi Classics

Topics: Faith, Done

Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.

Topics: One Day, Timely, Values

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

source: - George MacDonald (2016). “Unspoken Sermons, completed: MacDonald's Works”, p.69, VM eBooks

Topics: Doe, Want, Want Me

...though I cannot promise to take you home," said North Wind, as she sank nearer and nearer to the tops of the houses, "I can promise you it will be all right in the end. You will get home somehow.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “At the Back of the North Wind (Illustrated): Children's Classic Fantasy Novel from the Author of Adela Cathcart, Phantastes, The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, The Light Princess & Dealings with the Fairies”, p.27, e-artnow

Topics: Home, Wind, House, North Wind

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.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.647, e-artnow

Topics: Successful, Men, Haste

Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.4208, Delphi Classics

Topics: Sorry, Princess, Opportunity, Uneasy

A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter and thinking himself a good Christian.

source: - George MacDonald (2007). “Unspoken Sermons”, p.401, Cosimo, Inc.

Topics: Christian, Men, Thinking, Good Christian

One who not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them, whose garment and revelation they are-if he be such, I say, he will stand, for more than a moment, speechless with something akin to that which made the morning stars sing together.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.5396, e-artnow

Topics: Morning, Stars, Soul

As to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.5197, e-artnow

Topics: Mind, Common, Genuine

Which of us is other than a secret to all but God!

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.1231, e-artnow

Topics: Secret

LET A MAN THINK AND CARE ever so little about God, he does not therefore exist without God. God is here with him, upholding, warming, delighting, teaching him-making life a good thing to him. God gives him himself, though the man knows it not.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13137, e-artnow

Topics: God, Teaching, Men

If there be a God and one has never sought him, it will be small consolation to remember that one could not get proof of his existence.

source: - George MacDonald (2015). “THOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE + PAUL FABER, SURGEON + THERE AND BACK - The Complete Series: The Curate's Awakening, The Lady's Confession & The Baron's Apprenticeship”, p.838, e-artnow

Topics: Atheist, If There Is A God, Atheism

Things come to the poor that can't get in at the door of the rich. Their money somehow blocks it up. It is a great privilege to be poor--one that no man covets, and brat a very few have sought to retain, but one that yet many have learned to prize.

Topics: Block, Men, Doors