Quotes from George MacDonald

You would not think any duty small, If you yourself were great.

Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.

What a good thing, for instance, it was that one princess should sleep for a hundred years! Was she not saved from all the plague of young men who were not worthy of her? And did not she come awake exactly at the right moment when the right prince kissed her? For my part, I cannot help wishing a good many girls would sleep till just the same fate overtook them. It would be happier for them, and more agreeable to their friends.

Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all cries.

I am ready,' I replied. 'How do you know you can do it?' 'Because you require it,' I answered.

Don't you sometimes find it hard to remember God all through your work? asked Clementina. I don't try to consciously remember Him every moment. For He is in everything, whether I am thinking of it or not. When I go fishing, I go to catch God's fish. When I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild creatures. When I read the Bible or Shakespeare, I am listening to the word of God, uttered in each after its own kind. When the wind blows on my face, it is God's wind.

In moments of doubt I cry, 'Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?' 'Whence then came thy dream?' answers Hope.

There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is false is no source of might. It is the truth shining from behind that gives the strength to disbelieve.

We are dwellers in a divine universe where no desires are in vain - if only they be large enough.

One day [the prince] lost sight of his retinue in a great forest. These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back the bran. Then the princes get away to follow their fortunes. In this they have the advantage of the princesses, who are forced to marry before they have had a bit of fun. I wish our princesses got lost in a forest sometimes.

The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe.

To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lie against God; to say that it is therefore right, is to lie against the very spirit of God.

I rose as from the death that wipes out the sadness of life, and then dies itself in the new morrow.

but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.

It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden, however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and soul than He has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from all dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set us free.

How kind is weariness sometimes! It is like the Father's hand laid a little heavy on the heart to make it still.

When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfill it.

But it was little to Curdie that men who did not know what he was about should not approve of his proceedings.

Then what do you see? asked Irene, who perceived at once that for her not to believe him was at least as bad as for him not to believe her.

How kind you are, North Wind!' 'I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it.

Let me, if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by a glowing hearth, in summer by a vase of flowers. If I may not, let me think how nice they would be and bury myself in my work. I do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the worlds holds, and be content without it.

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

And when heart and head go together, nothing can stand before them

Above all things, I delight in listening to stories, and sometimes in telling them.