Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“I lost my way." "[...]. You wouldn't have lost your way if you hadn't been frightened.”
“Had she presumed in coming--anticipated the guidance of Providence, and was she therefore now where she had no right to be? She could not tell; but, anyhow, here she was, and no one could be anywhere without the fact involving its own duty. Even if she had put herself there, and was to blame for being there, that did not free her from the obligations of the position, and she was willing to do whatever should _now_ be given her to do. God was not a hard master; if she had made a mistake, he would pardon her, and either give her work here, where she found herself, or send her elsewhere. I need not say that thinking was not all her care; for she thought in the presence of Him who, because he is always setting our wrong things right, is called God our Saviour.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
“There is no law that sermons shall be the preacher's own, but there is an eternal law against all manner of humbug. Pardon the word.”
“There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved ... Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of Love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.”
“The person who can not bear with a sick man or a baby is not fit to be a woman.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
“Feeding troughs for the sheep there might be many in the fields, and they might or might not be presided over by servants of the true Shepherd, but the fold they were not!”
“The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning, of the person who bears it. It is the man's own symbol,--his soul's picture, in a word,--the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, or even, seeing what he is, could express in a name-word the sum and harmony of what he sees.”
“No good ever comes of pride, for it is the meanest of mean things, and no one but he who is full of it thinks it grand.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
topics: pride
“He is against sin: inso far as, and while, they and sin are one, he is against them--against their desires, their aims, their fears, and their hopes; and thus he is altogether and always for them.”
“If a dream reveal a principle, that principle is a revelation, and the dream is neither more NOR LESS valuable than a waking thought that does the same.”
“The well-meaning woman was in fact possessed by two devils--the one the stiff-necked devil of pride, the other the condescending devil of benevolence. She was kind, but she must have credit for it”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
topics: pride
“Although repentance comes because God pardons...the man becomes aware of the pardon only in repentance.”
“The clouds were gathering over Mary, too--deep and dark, but of altogether another kind from those that enveloped Letty: no troubles are for one moment to be compared with those that come of the wrongness, even if it be not wickedness, that is our own. Some clouds rise from stagnant bogs and fens; others from the wide, clean, large ocean. But either kind, thank God, will serve the angels to come down by. In the old stories of celestial visitants the clouds do much; and it is oftenest of all down the misty slope of griefs and pains and fears, that the most powerful joy slides into the hearts of men and women and children.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
“Man shall not live by bread alone." There are other ways of living besides that which comes by bread. A man will live by the word of God, by what God says to him, ... by the truths of being which the Father alone can reveal to his child, by the communion of love between them. Without the bread he will die, as men say; but he will not find that he dies. He will only find that ... the earthly house will melt away from around him, and he will find that he has a palace-home about him, another and loftier word of God clothing upon him.”
“The main secret of his progress, the secret of all wisdom, was, that with him action was the beginning and end of thought.”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
“I begin to suspect," said the curate, after a pause, "that the common transactions of life are the most sacred channels for the spread of the heavenly leaven.”
“In sowing the seed he will not withhold his hand because there are thorns and stony places and waysides.”
“punishment had not been spared--with best results in patience and purification”
― George MacDonald ,
from Mary Marston
“the fact that the church draws so few of those that are despised, of those whom Jesus drew and to whom most expressly he came, gives ground for question as to how far the church is like her Lord.”
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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.