Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“It is one of the poorest of human weaknesses that a man would be ashamed of saying he has done wrong instead of so ashamed of having done wrong that he cannot rest till he has said so. For the shame cleaves fast until the confession removes it.”
“However strange it may well seem, to do one's duty will make anyone conceited who only does it sometimes. Those who do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets?”
topics: wisdom
“A condition which of declension would indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint.”
“Here lies David Elginbrod Have mercy on my soul, dear God, As I would ye if I were God And ye were David Elginbrod.”
“It was not a bed with curtains, but a bed with doors like shutters. This may not seem like a nice way of having a bed, but we would all be glad of the wooden curtains about us at night if we lived in such a cottage, on the side of a hill along which the wind swept like a wild river. Through the cottage it would be streaming all night long. And a poor woman with a cough, or a man who has been out in the cold all day, is very glad of such a place to lie in, and leave the the rest of the house to the wind and the fairies.”
“When I learn the meaning of a word, I know the word; but when I say to myself, 'I know the word,' there comes a reflection of the word back from the mirror of my mind, making a second impression, and after that I am at least not so likely to forget it...“When, then, I think about the impression that the word makes upon me, how it is affecting me with the knowledge of itself, then I am what I should call self-conscious of the word—conscious not only that I know the word, but that I know the phenomena of knowing the word—conscious of what I am as regards my knowing of the word.”
“The world is like a picture with a golden background and we the figures in that picture. Until you step off the plane of the picture into the large dimensions of death you cannot see the gold. But we have reminders of it."-George MacDonald *Gold being Heaven *Picture being life”
“She married:— O, most wicked speed, to post/With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!”
“Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
“Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd... Thou comest in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee...”
topics: inspirational
“We fatten all the other creatures, to fatten ourselves, and we fatten ourselves for the worms. A fat king and a skinny beggar are only two different subterfuges, two dishes, but for one table - it's the end.”
“When sorrows come, they don't come as lonely outposts, but swell in troops”
“It’s a pity that the rich have more freedom to hang or drown themselves than the rest of us Christians.”
topics: hamlet-act-5-scene-1
“(Hamlet Ophelia'ya) " Evlenirsen şu acı sözü çeyiz diye götürürsün benden: Buzlar kadar el değmedik, karlar gibi temiz de olsan çamur atılmaktan kurtulmayacaksın. Manastıra git. Haydi, elveda! Ama ille de evleneceksen, sersemin biriyle evlen: Çünkü akıllılar sizin kendilerini ne canavara çevireceğinizi bilirler. Manastıra, manastıra git; çarçabuk hem de. Elveda!”
“But all is in vain, for that is our mood. Even the nature keeps it's habits and doesn't care, for what the shame objects.”
“Ser ou não ser, eis a questão. Qual é mais digna ação da alma; sofrer os dardos penetrantes da sorte injusta, ou opor-se a esta corrente de calamidades e dar-lhes fim com atrevida resistência? Morrer... dormir... nada mais... Morrer é dormir, sonhar talvez...”
topics: filosófico
“İnsan iki şey beklemez mi dualarından: Günah işlememek, işleyince de bağışlanmak.”
“People are so ready to think themselves change when it is only their mood that is changed! Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine day, will be ill-tempered when it rains: their selves are just the same both days; only in one case , the fine weather has got them, in the other the rainy.”
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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.