George MacDonald Quotes

To have what we want is riches but to be able to do without is power.

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

When I learn the meaning of a word, I know the word; but when I say to myself, 'I know the word,' th...

Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin.The only vengeance worth havin...

Love me, beloved; Hades and DeathShall vanish away like a frosty breath;These hands, that now are at...

The more I work with the body, keeping my assumptions in a temporary state of reservation, the more ...

However strange it may well seem, to do one's duty will make any one conceited who only does it some...

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

I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.

Heed not thy feeling. Do thy work.

No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best: therefore many things that God would gla...

There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end.

With every morn my life afresh must breakThe crust of self, gathered about me fresh;That thy wind-sp...

I would never speak about faith, but speak about the Lord himself - not theologically, as to the why...

Who can give a man this, his own name?

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and b...

We must remember that God is not occupied with a grand toy of worlds and suns and planets, of attrac...

I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; f...

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

I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.

How old are you?""Ten," answered Tangle."You don't look like it," said the lady."How old are you, pl...

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

The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, strikin...

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to...

I can but pray the Father o' a' to haud his e'e upon her, an' his airms aboot her, an' keep aff the ...

The nearer persons come to each other, the greater is the room and the more are the occasions for co...

One of my greatest difficulties in consenting to think of religion was that I thought I should have ...

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

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.

It is the heart that is unsure of its God that is afraid to laugh.

To cease to wonder is to fall plumb-down from the childlike to the commonplace—the most undivine of ...

Attitudes are more important than facts.

Work done is of more consequence for the future than the foresight of an angel.

All that is not God is death.

If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want ...

There is little hope of the repentance and redemption of certain some until they have committed one ...

Anybody with leisure can do that who is willing to begin where everything ought to be begun--that is...

The ruin of a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he ...

The back door of every tomb opens on a hilltop.

When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when it was gone they felt as if it had...

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

A perfect faith would lift us absolutely above fear.

This is a sane wholesome practical working faith: That it is a man's business to do the will of G...

Timely service like timely gifts is doubled in value.

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

My prayers my God flow from what I am not I think Thy answers make me what I am.

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.

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

The principle part of faith is patience.

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

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

It is not the cares of today but the cares of tomorrow that weigh a man down. For the needs of tod...

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

Fear is faithlessness.

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

Forgiveness is the giving and so the receiving of life.

The west is broken into bars Of orange gold and gray Gone is the sun come are the stars And nig...

There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of t...

The necessary unlikeness between the creator and the created holds within it the equally necessary l...

To inquire into what God has made is the main function of the imagination. It is aroused by facts, i...

The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.

Indeed, a man is rather being thought than thinking, when a new thought arises in his mind.

All words, then, belonging to the inner world of the mind, are of the imagination, are originally po...

The heavens and the earth are around us that it may be possible for us to speak of the unseen by the...

...To trust in the strength of God in our weakness; to say, ‘I am weak: so let me be: God is strong;...

To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lie aga...

She would be one of those who kneel to their own shadows till feet grow on their knees; then go down...

Seeing is not believing, it is only seeing,”George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

That's all nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you mean." "Then if you don't know what I mean...

The boy should enclose and keep, as his life, the old child at the heart of him, and never let it go...

The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies.

It is just the old way--that of obedience. If you have ever seen the Lord, if only from afar--if you...

I fear you will never arrive at an understanding of God so long as you cannot bring yourself to see ...

Our Lord speaks of many coming up to His door confident of admission, whom He yet sends away. Faith ...

I would I were in the kingdom of heaven if it be as you and Mr. Graham take it for!" said Clementina...

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

A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my ...

You have tasted of death now,” said the old man. “Is it good?” “It is good,” said Mossy. “It is bett...

I should not be surprised," said Mr. Graham, "that the day should come when men will refuse to belie...

A library cannot be made all at once, any more than a house or a nation or a tree; they must all tak...

If we speak of direct means for the culture of the imagination, the whole is comprised in two words-...

In very truth, a wise imagination, which is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide tha...

Seek not that your sons and your daughters should not see visions, should not dream dreams; seek tha...

But we believe – nay, Lord we only hope,That one day we shall thank thee perfectlyFor pain and hope ...

O, lack and doubt and fear can only comeBecause of plenty, confidence, and love!They are the shadow-...

Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?""If He did not, He could not be ...

...he believed in God and he believed that when the human is still, the Divine speaks to it, because...

O Lord, I have been talking to the people;Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zoneAnd the...

I am a beast until I love as God doth love.

Her heart - like every heart, if only its fallen sides were cleared away - was an inexhaustible foun...

Afflictions are but the shadow of His wings.

Never, my little one, hide anything from those that love you. Never let anything that makes itself a...

For others, as for ourselves, we must trust him. If we could thoroughly understand anything, that wo...

...[T]wo of you can be no match for the three giants, I will find you, if I can, a third brother, wh...

He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had for...

That's a poet.''I thought you said it was a bo-at.''Stupid pet! Don't you know what a poet it?''Why,...

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

It is a hard thing for a rich man to grow poor; but it is an awful thing for him to grow dishonest, ...

The church grew very lonely about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken i...

Trust the Oak,” said she; “trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech. Take care of the Birch, ...

Past tears are present strength.