Quotes from George MacDonald

Not every man that thinks the other way is a rogue or a fool.

But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!

is it not better to complain if one but complain to God himself? Does he not then draw nigh to God with what truth is in him? And will he not then fare as Job, to whom God drew nigh in return, and set his heart at rest?

Then she would laugh like the very spirit of fun; only in her laugh there was something missing. What it was, I find myself unable to describe. I think it was a certain tone, depending upon the possibility of sorrow--MORBIDEZZA, perhaps. She never smiled.

He has not yet learned that the day begins with sleep! said the woman, turning to her husband. Tell him he must rest before he can do anything!

He began to wonder whether even an all-mighty and all-good God would be able to contrive such a world as no somebody in it would ever complain of. What if he had plans too large for the vision of men to take in, and they were uncomfortable to their own blame, because, not seeing them, they would trust him for nothing?

Good luck "You will be the better for it," he returned. "I believe I've allus been the better for any trouble as ever I had to go through with. I couldn't quite say the same for every bit of good luck I had; leastways, I consider trouble the best luck a man can have." Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 33

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

To be, or not to be, that is the Question:

No one who will not sleep can ever wake.

we shall never be able, I say, to rest in the bosom of the Father, till the fatherhood is fully revealed to us in the love of the brothers. For he cannot be our father save as he is their father; and if we do not see him and feel him as their father, we cannot know him as ours.

the one and only safety in the universe, is the perfect nearness of the Living One! God is being; death is nowhere!

How much time is wasted in what is called thought, but is merely care--an anxious idling over the fancied probabilities of result

There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end

began to talk about the parish.

Thus the pride, which is of man, mingled with the love, which is of God, and Polluted it.

alas, how little can language say without seeming to say something wrong!

We all, with clear vision of the Lord, mirroring in our hearts his glory, even as a mirror would take into itself his face, are thereby changed into his likeness, his glory working our glory, by the present power, in our inmost being, of the Lord, the spirit.' Our mirroring of Christ, then, is one with the presence of his spirit in us.

The fact was, that the moment he began to love Alice, his eyes began to send forth light. What he thought came from Alice's face, really came from his eyes. All about her and her path he could see, and every minute saw better; but to his own path he was blind. He could not see his hand when he held it straight before his face, so dark was it. But he could see Alice, and that was better than seeing the way-- ever so much.

Ere thou ride, look well to thy girths,and as thou ridest say thy prayers, for it pleaseth not God that every man on the right side should live, and thou mayest find the presence in which thou standest change suddenly from that of mortal man to living God.

Her dark eyes looked as if they found repose there, so quietly did they rest on the face of the old man

But the little people were constantly doing and saying things that pleased, often things that surprised me. Every day I grew more loath to leave them. While I was at work, they would keep coming and going, amusing and delighting me, and taking all the misery, and much of the weariness out of my monotonous toil. Very soon I loved them more than I can tell. They did not know much, but they were very wise, and seemed capable of learning anything.

be.—I had been refused a few months before

Because you don't see what can be done, you say God can do nothing—which is as much as to say there cannot be more within his scope than there is within yours! One thing is clear, that, if he saw no more than what lies within your ken, he could not be God. The very impossibility you see in the thing points to the region wherein God works.