Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“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.”
“The fault lay with those who had brought him up to the church as to the profession of medicine, or the bar, or the drapery business—as if it lay on one level of choice with other human callings.”
“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”
“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.”
“There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end.”
“However strange it may well seem, to do one's duty will make any one 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? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.”
“We must remember that God is not occupied with a grand toy of worlds and suns and planets, of attractions and repulsions, of agglomerations and crystallizations, of forces and waves; that these but constitute a portion of his workshops and tools for the bringing out of righteous men and women to fill his house of love withal.”
“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.”
“If you do not obey Him, you will not know Him. You will tell me, some of you, that I am always beating that anvil–that obedience to Christ is Christianity. Let me die insisting upon it. For my Lord insists upon it.”
“That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to him, 'Thou art my refuge, because thou art my home.”
“Here lies David Elginbrod Have mercy on my soul, dear God, As I would ye if I were God And ye were David Elginbrod.”
“...when the children had made sparrows of clay, Thou mad'st them birds, with wings to flutter and fold: Take, Lord, my prayer in thy hand, and make it pray.”
“And we had met at last in this same cave of greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love, and the odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping woods were the only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude.”
“A condition which of declension would indicate a devil, may of growth indicate a saint.”
“By obedience, I intend no kind of obedience to man, or submission to authority claimed by man or community of men. I mean obedience to the will of the Father, however revealed in our conscience.”
“There must be hope while there is existence; for where there is existence there must be God; and God is forever good nor can be other than good.”
“Then let us be of one heart too, Dawtie!" She was so accustomed to hear Andrew speak in figures, that sometimes she looked through and beyond his words. She did so now, and seeing nothing, stood perplexed. "Willna ye, Dawtie?" said Andrew, holding out his hands. "I dinna freely understand ye, An'rew!" "Ye heavenly idiot!" cried Andrew. "Will ye be my wife, or will you no?”
“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
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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.