Quotes from George MacDonald

Yes, it is - a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he is made so, and never had to try.

To be right with God is to be right with the universe: one with the power, the love, the will of the mighty Father, the cherisher of joy, the Lord of laughter, whose are all glories, all hopes, who loves everything and hates nothing but selfishness.

The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies.

Happily for our blessedness, the joy of possession soon palls.

The highest truth to the intellect, the abstract truth, is the relation in which man stands to the source of his being-his will to the will whence it became a will, his love to the love that kindled his power to love, his intellect to the intellect that lighted his.

Hell The one principle of hell is—"I am my own!

The bliss of the animals lies in this, that, on their lower level, they shadow the bliss of those—few at any moment on the earth—who do not "look before and after, and pine for what is not" but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now.

How many of the judgments we are told not to judge and yet do judge, must make the angels of the judging and the judged turn and look at each other and smile a sad smile, ere they set themselves to forget that which so sorely needs to be forgotten.

She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected of a princess her age.

Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call reality? -- not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still...All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass...

Let us keep our shame and be made clean! Shame is not defilement, though a mean pride persuades men so. On the contrary, the man who is honestly ashamed has begun to be clean.

I maun hae buiks. I wad get the newspapers whiles, but no aften, for they're a sair loss o' precious time. Ye see they tell ye things afore they're sure, an' ye hae to spen' yer time the day readin' what ye'll hae to spen' yer time the morn readin' oot again; an' ye may as weel bide till the thing's sattled a wee.

Then know, he returned, and his voice was stern, that thou who callest thyself alive, hast brought into this chamber the odours of death, and its air will not be wholesome for the sleepers until thou art gone from it!

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

Christ is our righteousness, not that we should escape punishment, still less escape being righteous, but as the live potent creator of righteousness in us, so that we, with our wills receiving His spirit, shall like Him resist unto blood, striving against sin.

By obeying one learns how to obey.

The little boy was just as much one of God's messengers as if he had been an angel with a flaming sword, going out to fight the devil. The devil he had to fight just then was Misery.

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

There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul.

For He regards men not as they are merely, but as they shall be; not as they shall be merely, but as they are now growing, or capable of growing, toward that image after which He made them that they might grow to it. Therefore a thousand stages, each in itself all but valueless, are of inestimable worth as the necessary and connected gradations of an infinite progress. A condition which of declension would indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint.

When a man is…one with God, what should he do but live forever?

Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?

I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and He does not expect it."—It would be more honest if he said, "I do not want to be perfect: I am content to be saved." Such as he do not care for being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, but for being what they called saved.

If I cannot be noble myself, be a servant to his nobleness.