Quotes from George MacDonald

He has wronged me grievously. It is a dreadful thing to me, and more dreadful still to him, that he should have done it. He has hurt me, but he has nearly killed himself.

The praise of men, and the love of that praise, had now restored him to his own good graces.

Then let us be of one heart too, Dawtie! She was so accustomed to hear Andrew speak in figures, that sometimes she looked through and beyond his words. She did so now, and seeing nothing, stood perplexed. Willna ye, Dawtie? said Andrew, holding out his hands. I dinna freely understand ye, An'rew! Ye heavenly idiot! cried Andrew. Will ye be my wife, or will you no?

The light of our life, our sole, eternal, and infinite joy, is simply God - God - God - nothing but God, and all His creatures in Him. He is all in all, and the children of the kingdom know it. He includes all things; not to be true to anything He has made is to be untrue to Him. God is truth, is life; to be in God is to know Him and need no law. Existence will be eternal Godness.

He did not care for a love that would save him alone, and send to the dust those thousands of calf-worshipping brothers and sisters.

However strange it may well seem, to do one's duty will make anyone conceited who only does it sometimes. Those who do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets?

Nothing almost sees miracles But misery.

And now, in love with himself, and so shut out from the salvation of love to another, he was specially in danger of falling in love with any woman's admiration.

The days glided by. The fervid Summer slid away round the shoulder of the world, and made room for her dignified matron sister; my lady Autumn swept her frayed and discoloured train out of the great hall-door of the world, and old brother Winter, who so assiduously waits upon the house, and cleans its innermost recesses, was creeping around it, biding his time, but eager to get to his work.

our imagination is made to mirror truth; all the things that appear in it are more or less after the model of things that are; I suspect it is the region whence issues prophecy; and when we are true it will mirror nothing but truth.

On a summer morning she woke to a sense of returning health. She had been lying like a waste shore, at low spring-tide, covered with dry seaweeds, withered jelly-fishes, and a multitudinous life that gasped for the ocean: at last the cook washing throb of the great sea of bliss, whose fountain is the heart of God, had stolen upon her consciousness, and she knew that she lived.

When the Lord is known as the heart of every joy, as well as the refuge from every sorrow, then the altar will be known for what it is—an ecclesiastical antique. The Father permitted but never ordained sacrifice; in tenderness to his children he ordered the ways of their unbelieving belief.

Who invented music? Some one must have made the delight of it possible! With his own share in its joy he had had nothing to do! Was Chance its grand inventor, its great ingenieur? Why or how should Chance love loveliness that was not, and make it be, that others might love it? Could it be a deaf God, or a being that did not care and would not listen, that invented music? No; music did not come of itself, neither could the source of it be devoid of music!

Beauty and sadness always go together. Nature thought Beauty too golden to go forth Upon the earth without a meet alloy.

her—nobody but Sarah;

She was too much occupied with obedience to trouble her head about opinion, either her own or other people's.

What is the matter with your master? George asked Dawtie as they bounced along toward Potlurg. God knows, sir. What is the use of telling me that? I want you to tell me what YOU know. I don't know anything, sir.

It is strange, but so it is, that many a man never sees himself until he becomes aware of the eyes of other men fixed upon him; they seeing him, and he knowing that they see him, then first, even to himself, will he confess what he may have long all but known.

Perhaps I was to learn how my father, whose personal history was unknown to me, had woven his web of story; how he had found the world, and how the world had left him.

You know nothing about whereness. The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home.

It is one of the poorest of human weaknesses that a man would be ashamed of saying he has done wrong instead of so ashamed of having done wrong that he cannot rest till he has said so. For the shame cleaves fast until the confession removes it.

When one says to the great Thinker:-- Here is one of thy thoughts: I am thinking it now! that is a prayer--a word to the big heart from one of its own little hearts.-- Look, there is another!

The man who recognizes the truth of any human relation and neglects the duty involved is not a true man.... A man may be aware of the highest truths of many things, and yet not be a true man, inasmuch as the essentials of manhood are not his aim: he has not come into the flower of his own being.

My friends, I offer this as only a contribution towards the understanding of our Lord's words. But if we ask him, he will lead us into all truth. And let us not be afraid to think, for he will not take it ill.