George MacDonald Quotes

God chooses that men should be tried, but let a man beware of tempting his neighbor.

One chief cause of the amount of unbelief in the world is tha tthose who have seen something of the glory of Christ set themselves to theorize concerning him rather than to obey him.

All love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad.

A man must learn to love his children, not because they are his, but because they are children, else his love will be scarcely a better thing at last than the party-spirit of the faithful politician.

Alas! this time is never the time for self-denial, it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence.

There are thousands willing to do great things for one willing to do a small thing.

We must do the thing we must Before the thing we may; We are unfit for any trust Till we can and do obey.

He (God) can be revealed only to the child; perfectly, to the pure child only. All the discipline of the world is to make men children, that God may be revealed to them.

All is loss that comes between us and Christ.

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

A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself.

Heaven...a place where everything that is not music is silence.

There is no slave but the creature that wills against its Creator.

Life and religion are one, or neither is any thing.

Better to have the poet's heart than brain, Feeling than song.

And her life will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not stay.

What can money do to console a man with a headache?

But there are victories far worse than defeats; and to overcome an angel too gentle to put out all his strength, and ride away in triumph on the back of a devil, is one of the poorest.

Now and then, when I look round on my books, they seem to waver as if a wind rippled their solid mass, and another world were about to break through.

In Giving, a man receives more than he gives; and the more is in proportion to the worth of the thing given.

I am sometimes almost terrified at the scope of the demands made upon me, at the perfection of the self-abandonment required of me; yet outside of such absoluteness can be no salvation.

Those are not the tears of repentance!... Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.

It is the heart that is not sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.

As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.

I don't know how to thank you.' Then I will tell you. There is only one way I care for. Do better, and grow better, and be better.

Philosophy is really homesickness.

I believe in fate, never in chance.

He (God) loves what I shall be.

I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.

But there are not a few who would be indignant at having their belief in God questioned, who yet seem greatly to fear imagining Him better than He is.

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

I learned that he that will be a hero will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work is sure of his manhood.

A voice is in the wind I do not know A meaning on the face of the high hills Whose utterance I cannot comprehend. A something is behind them: that is God.

But words are vain; reject them all— They utter but a feeble part: Hear thou the depths from which they call, The voiceless longing of my heart.

Alas, how easily things go wrong! A sigh too much, a kiss too long And there follows a mist and a weeping rain And life is never the same again

If those who had set themselves to explain the various theories of Christianity had set themselves instead to do the will of the Master, how different the world would be now!

For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition; and that is, not to know it, but to think himself a respectable man.

I tell you, there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!

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

People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.

Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death!

There is but one thing that can free a man from superstition, and that is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been the most credulous.

A true friend is forever a friend.

As no scripture is of private interpretation, so is there no feeling in a human heart which exists in that heart alone - which is not, in some form or degree, in every human heart.

Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale.

A Baby Sermon- The lighting and thunder, they go and they come: But the stars and the stillness are always at home

If both Church and fairy-tale belong to humanity, they may occasionally cross circles, without injury to either.

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

It's right to trust in God; but, if you don't stand to your halliards your craft'll miss stays, and your faith'll be blown out of the bolt-ropes in the turn of a marlinspike.

God is the God of the animals in a far lovelier way, I suspect, than many of us dare to think, but he will not be the God of a man by making a good beast of him.