Quotes from George MacDonald

Past tears are present strength.

As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.

If we will but let our God and Father work His will with us, there can be no limit to His enlargement of our existence

A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer.

The world...is full of resurrections... Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it - the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.

It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.

As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.

We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well.

Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.

This is a sane, wholesome, practical, working faith: That it is a man's business to do the will of God; second, that God himself takes on the care of that man; and third, that therefore that man ought never to be afraid of anything.

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down. For the needs of today we have corresponding strength given. For the morrow we are told to trust. It is not ours yet.

It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.

The west is broken into bars Of orange, gold, and gray, Gone is the sun, come are the stars, And night infolds the day.

A man's real belief is that which he lives by. What a man believes is the thing he does, not the thing he thinks.

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.

Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom.

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

I only know when I don't know a thing. My uncle has taught me that wisdom lies in that.

No man has the mind of Christ, except him who makes it his business to obey him.

It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves about--what to do next. No man can do the second thing. He can do the first.

The Bible is to me the most precious thing in the world, because it tells me his story; and what good men thought about him who knew him and accepted him.

No man can make haste to be rich without going against the will of God, in which case it is the one frightful thing to be successful.

In the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; what men call death is but a shadow.

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