Quotes from George MacDonald

Similarly, there are multitudes who lose their lives pondering what they ought to believe, while something lies at their door waiting to be done, and rendering it impossible for him who makes it wait, ever to know what to believe.

But it is not the rich man only who is under the dominion of things; they too are slaves who, having no money, are unhappy from the lack of it.

if there be such a thing as truth, every fresh doubt is yet another finger-post pointing towards its dwelling.

No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they are beautiful.

I begin to suspect, said the curate, after a pause, that the common transactions of life are the most sacred channels for the spread of the heavenly leaven. There was ten times more of the divine in selling her that gown as you did, in the name of God, than in taking her into your pew and singing out of the same hymn-book with her.

If we speak of direct means for the culture of the imagination, the whole is comprised in two words--food and exercise.

My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not; I think thy answers make me what I am. Like weary waves thought follows upon thought, But the still depth beneath is all thine own, And there thou mov'st in paths to us unknown.

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.

I am sorry I cannot think of a compliment to pay you-without lying, that is.

Many a wrong, and it's curing song, many a road, and many an inn, Room to roam, but only one home, for all the world to win. George MacDonald, (Lilith)

There is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is, the fewer proselytes he makes: the worship of himself.

Then you're leaving the story unfinished, Mr. Author! Not more unfinished then a story ought to be, I hope. If you ever knew a story finished, all I can say is, I never did. Somehow, stories won't finish. I think I know why, but I won't say that either, now.

Our moon, he answered, is not like yours-the old cinder of a burnt-out world; her beams embalm the dead, not corrupt them.

every question is a door-handle.

Our Selves are like some little children who will be happy enough so long as they are left to their own games, but when we begin to interfere with them, and make them presents of too nice playthings, or too many sweet things, they begin at once to fret and spoil.

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.

I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence.

It is not by driving away our brother that we can be alone with God.

One who not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them ...

But there must be some poor! I said. I suppose there must be, but we never think of such people. When one goes poor, we forget him. That is how we keep rich. We mean to be rich always.

But then to every lover of the truth, a true thing is dearer because it is old-fashioned, and dearer because it is new-fashioned: and true music, like true love, like all truth, laughs at the god Fashion, because it knows him to be but an ape.

I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself.

Ignorance is no reason with a fool for holding his tongue.

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. Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account.