Quotes from George MacDonald

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

The Root of All Rebellion: It is because we are not near enough to Thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own different from thine.

It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you.

We are often unable to tell people what they need to know, because they want to know something else, and would therefore only misunderstand what we said.

Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the Everywhere into here.

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

Division has done more to hide Christ from the view of men than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken.

Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God.

...as no one can be just without love, so no one can truly report without understanding.

It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.

Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.

Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness

Afflictions are but the shadows of God's wings.

No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.

The world and my being, its life and mine, were one. The microcosm and macrocosm were at length atoned, at length in harmony. I lived in everything; everything entered and lived in me.

Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the Everywhere and into here.

Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.

One of the good things that come of a true marriage is, that there is one face on which changes come without your seeing them; or rather there is one face which you can still see the same, through all the shadows which years have gathered upon it.

When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.