Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“The trees bathed their great heads in the waves of the morning, while their roots were planted deep in gloom; save where on the borders of the sunshine broke against their stems, or swept in long streams through their avenues, washing with brighter hue all the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of the dacayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the long grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over which it passed in the motionless rivers of light.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Phantastes
“O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple Hell?”
topics: anguish , distress , fear , grief , heaven-and-earth , heaven-and-hell , horror , injustice , what-else
“Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed.”
“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.”
“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.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Marquis' Secret
topics: god-in-everything
“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.”
“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.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Light Princess
“I am ready,' I replied. 'How do you know you can do it?' 'Because you require it,' I answered.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Lilith
“You have tasted of death now,” said the old man. “Is it good?” “It is good,” said Mossy. “It is better than life.” “No,” said the old man: “it is only more life.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Golden Key
topics: death
“We are dwellers in a divine universe where no desires are in vain - if only they be large enough.”
“Bad is the world, and all will come to naught when such ill-dealing must be seen in thought.”
“Death is not easily escaped, try it who will; but every living soul among the children of men dwelling upon the earth goeth of necessity unto his destined place, where the body, fast in its narrow bed, sleepeth after feast.”
“This is the very ecstasy of love, Whose violent property fordoes itself And leads the will to desperate undertakings As oft as any passion under heaven That does afflict our natures.”
“How kind is weariness sometimes! It is like the Father's hand laid a little heavy on the heart to make it still.”
“Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This in the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest.”
“Do not commit spiritual suicide through a passion for discussing metaphysical subtleties.”
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George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.
Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence."
Even Mark Twain, who initially disliked MacDonald, became friends with him, and there is some evidence that Twain was influenced by MacDonald.
MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church, with an atmosphere of Calvinism. But MacDonald never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine; indeed, legend has it that when the doctrine of predestination was first explained to him, he burst into tears (although assured that he was one of the elect). Later novels, such as Robert Falconer and Lilith, show a distaste for the idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others.