Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“On every side were stretched the bodies of men and animals apparently lifeless.”
“now at the end of a long avenue, but when he turned to, look for his followers not one was to be seen; the woods had closed instantly upon him as he had passed through. He was entirely alone, and utter”
“Oh, if I only had a little child, I should like it to be as fair as snow, as rosy as the red blood, and with hair and eyes as black as ebony.”
“it is not the rich man only who is under the dominion of things; they too are slaves who, having no money, are unhappy from the lack of it.”
“The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in God’s care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is just as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the next thousand years—in neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared today are of the duty of today: the moment which coincides with work to be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till God has made it.”
“Because we easily imagine ourselves in want, we imagine God ready to forsake us.”
“Complaint against God is far nearer to God than indifference about Him.”
“We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well. [294] On Duty”
“Never wait for fitter time or place to talk to Him. To wait till thou go to church or to thy closet is to make Him wait. He will listen as thou walkest.”
“Work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.”
“These love self, not life, and self is but the shadow of life. When it is taken for life itself, and set as the man’s center, it becomes a live death in the man, a devil he worships as his God: the worm of the death eternal he clasps to his bosom as his one joy.”
“And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another? I can only answer with the return question, 'Why should my love be powerless to help another?”
“Do you ask, “What is faith in Him?” I answer, The leaving of your way, your objects, your self, and the taking of His and Him; the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself, and doing as He tells you. I can find no words strong enough to serve for the weight of this obedience.”
“For each, God has a different response. With every man He has a secret—the secret of a new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter. I say not it is the innermost chamber.”
“QUEEN MARGARET: From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death: That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood, That foul defacer of God's handiwork, That excellent grand tyrant of the earth That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls, Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.”
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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.