Quotes from George MacDonald

Therefore I have been training him for a work that must soon be done. I was near losing him, and had to send my pigeon. Had he not shot it, that would have been better; but he repented, and that shall be as good in the end.

There are many things which a little learning, while it cannot really hide them, may make you less ready to see all at once

For my part, I would believe in no God rather than in such a God as is generally offered for believing in. How far those may be to blame who, righteously disgusted, cast the idea from them, nor make inquiry whether something in it may not be true, though most must be false, neither grant it any claim to investigation on the chance that some that call themselves his prophets may have taken spiritual bribes

Those whose business it is to open doors, so often mistake and shut them!

Why, you don't seem even to know the good of the things you are constantly doing. Now don't mistake me. I don't mean you are good for doing them. It is a good thing to eat your breakfast, but you don't fancy it's very good of you to do it. The thing is good, not you.

Mrs Oldcastle was silent—why, I could not tell

There are a great many more good things than bad things to do.

The first thing in all progress is to leave something behind; to follow him is to leave one's self behind.

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

Truly, if ignorance is the foundation of any man's goodness, it is not worth the wind that upsets it, but in its mere self, ignorance of evil is a negative good.

Well, papa, I sometimes wish you wouldn't explain things so much. I seem to understand you all the time you are preaching, but when I try the text afterwards by myself, I can't make anything of it, and I've forgotten every word you said about it. Perhaps that is because you have no right to understand it. I thought all Protestants had a right to understand every word of the Bible, she returned. If they can

But may not one sometimes make a mistake without being able to help it?' 'Yes. But so long as he is not after his own ends, he will never make a serious mistake.

For a man to be his own schoolmaster, is a right dangerous position; the pupil cannot be expected to make progress—except, indeed, in the wrong direction.

The one cure for any organism, is to be set right--to have all its parts brought into harmony with each other; the one comfort is to know this cure in process. Rightness alone is cure. The return of the organism to its true self, is its only possible ease. To free a man from suffering, he must be set right, put in health; and the health at the root of man's being, his rightness, is to be free from wrongness, that is, from sin. A

He walked as in a twilight of the sense, Which this one day shall turn to tender light.

Might have been enough for a warning - it looked so like a human being dried up and distorted with age and suffering, with cares instead of loves, and things instead of thoughts.

Humble mistake will not hurt us: the truth is there, and the Lord will see that we come to know it. We may think we know it when we have scarce a glimpse of it; but the error of a true heart will not be allowed to ruin it. Certainly that heart would not have mistaken the truth except for the untruth yet remaining in it; but he who casts out devils will cast out that devil.

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. The man who is ever digging his grave is little better than he who already lies mouldering in it. The money the one has, the money the other would have, is in each the cause of an eternal stupidity.

Do you know my name, child?' 'No, I don't know it,' answered the princess. 'my name is Irene.' 'That's my name!' cried the princess. 'I know that. I let you have mine. I haven't got your name. You've got mine.' 'How can that be?' asked the princess, bewildered. 'I've always had my name.' 'Your papa, the king, asked me if I had any objection to your having it; and, of course, I hadn't. I let you have it with pleasure.

The boy should enclose and keep, as his life, the old child at the heart of him, and never let it go. He must still, to be a right man, be his mother's darling, and more, his father's pride, and more. The child is not meant to die, but to be for ever fresh-born.

Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying him!

The injunction is not to hide what you do from others, but to hide it from yourself. The Master would have you not plume yourself upon it, not cherish the thought that you have done it, or confer with yourself in satisfaction over it. You must not count it to your praise. A man must not desire to be satisfied with himself. His right hand must not seek the praise of his left hand.

I am the truth, said our Lord; and by those who are in some measure like him in being the truth, the Word can be understood. Let us try to understand him.

Of all children how can the children of God be old?