Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald

“The church grew very lonely about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken it. Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.”

“But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?”

“HAMLET   To be or not to be—that is the question: 64 Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer 65 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 66 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 67 And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep— 68 No more—and by a sleep to say we end 69 The heartache and the thousand natural shocks 70 That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation 71 Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— 72 To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, 73 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 74 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,”

“It is not nor it cannot come to good.”

“His poem is like a play in a room through the windows of which a distant view can be seen over a large part of the English traditions about the world of their original home. (Tolkien on the author of Beowulf)”

“Denmark's a prison.”

“Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor’s at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep—while, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? Oh, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!”

“I like him not, nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you; I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you: The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies.”

“To sleep perchance to dream.”

“Even Annie did not then know that it was the soul's hunger, the vague sense of a need which nothing but the God of human faces, the God of the morning and of the starful night, the God of love and self-forgetfulness, can satisfy, that sent her money-loving, poverty-stricken, pining, grumbling old aunt out staring towards the east. It is this formless idea of something at hand that keeps men and women striving to tear from the bosom of the world the secret of their own hopes. How little they know what they look for in reality is their God! This is that for which their heart and their flesh cry out.”

“I hurried away to the white hall of Phantasy heedless of the innumerable forms of beauty that crowded my way: these might cross my eyes, but the unseen filled my brain.”

“Ah, but, dear North Wind, you don't know how nice it is to feel your arms about me. It is a thousand times better to have them and the wind together, than to have only your hair and the back of your neck and no wind at all." "But it is surely more comfortable there?" "Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable." "Yes, indeed there are. Well, I will keep you in front of me. You will feel the wind, but not too much. I shall only want one arm to take care of you; the other will be quite enough to sink the ship." "Oh, dear North Wind! how can you talk so?" "My dear boy, I never talk; I always mean what I say." "Then you do mean to sink the ship with the other hand?" "Yes." "It's not like you." "How do you know that?" "Quite easily. Here you are taking care of a poor little boy with one arm, and there you are sinking a ship with the other. It can't be like you." "Ah! but which is me? I can't be two mes, you know." "No. Nobody can be two mes." "Well, which me is me?" "Now I must think. There looks to be two." "Yes. That's the very point.—You can't be knowing the thing you don't know, can you?" "No." "Which me do you know?" "The kindest, goodest, best me in the world," answered Diamond, clinging to North Wind. "Why am I good to you?" "I don't know." "Have you ever done anything for me?" "No." "Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you." "Yes." "Why should I choose?" "Because—because—because you like." "Why should I like to be good to you?" "I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me." "That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good." "Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?" "That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?" "I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?" "Because I am." "There it is again," said Diamond. "I don't see that you are. It looks quite the other thing." "Well, but listen to me, Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that is good." "Yes." "Do you know the other me as well?" "No. I can't. I shouldn't like to." "There it is. You don't know the other me. You are sure of one of them?" "Yes." "And you are sure there can't be two mes?" "Yes." "Then the me you don't know must be the same as the me you do know,—else there would be two mes?" "Yes." "Then the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do know?" "Yes." "Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn't look like it. That I confess freely. Have you anything more to object?" "No, no, dear North Wind; I am quite satisfied.”

“He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had forgotten it, but was miserable about it, notwithstanding. And this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart, and telling him to be good. For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds. On Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the cabman's heart it was misery; in the soul of St John it was perfect blessedness.”

“It is a moment, and it is eternity. It is the centre of the universe and it is the universe itself. The eternal light rests on and illuminates the eternal heart of things.”

“I don't understand," says Gerald, alone in his third- class carriage, "how railway trains and magic can go on at the same time." And yet they do.”

“لكن لا يحزنك قلقي يا سيدي، فالخوف والحب عند النساء متكافئان، لا يوجدان قط أو يوجدان إلى أقصى حد، فقد عرفتَ بالتجربة مقدار حبي، وبمقدار حبي أخشى عليك، وحين يكون الحب عظيما تنقلب الوساوس الصغيرة إلى خوف، وحين تنمو الوساوس الصغيرة ينمو معها الحب العظيم”

“I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.”

“لا تبح لسانك بمكنون صدرك ولا تعجل بتنفيذ رأي لم يتم نضجه كن متودداً إلى الناس، ولكن إياك أن تكون مبتذلاً وإن كان لك أصدقاء وبلوتهم وخبرتهم فضمهم إلى نفسك بأطواق الفولاذ أما الرفيق الغر الذي لم تهذبه السنون فلا تتعب كفك بمصاحبته والاحتفاء به حاذر أن تشتبك في عراك ولكن قدر إن اشتبكت فاحتمله، حتى يتقيك الخصم ويخشاك أعر سمعك لكل الناس ولكن لا تسمع صوتك إلا للقليل منهم أنصت إلى دعوى كل إنسان ولكن لا تتسرع في الحكم”

“Llévate mi bendición y graba en tu memoria estos principios: no le prestes lengua al pensamiento, ni lo pongas por obra si es impropio. Sé sociable, pero no con todos. Al amigo que te pruebe su amistad sujétalo al alma con aros de acero, pero no embotes tu mano agasajando al primer conocido que te llegue. Guárdate de riñas, pero, si peleas, haz que tu adversario se guarde de ti. A todos presta oídos; tu voz, a pocos. Escucha el juicio de todos, y guárdate el tuyo. Viste cuan fino permita tu bolsa, mas no estrafalario; elegante, no chillón, pues el traje suele revelar al hombre, y los franceses de rango y calidad son de suma distinción a este respecto. Ni tomes ni des prestado, pues dando se suele perder préstamo y amigo, y tomando se vicia la buena economía. Y, sobre todo, sé fiel a ti mismo...”

“Suit the action to the word, the Word to the action.”