Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“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.”
“Then had her envious heart rest, at least such rest as a heart full of envy and malice ever can have.”
“Ere thou ride, look well to thy girths,and as thou ridest say thy prayers, for it pleaseth not God that every man on the right side should live, and thou mayest find the presence in which thou standest change suddenly from that of mortal man to living God.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
“The demon has a name that is known among men, though it frightens few and draws many, alas! His name is Self, and he is the shadow of your own self. First he made you love him, which was evil, and now he has made you hate him, which is evil also. But if he be cast out and never more enter into your heart, but remain as a servant in your hall, then you will recover from this sickness, and be whole and sound, and will find the varlet serviceable.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
“Many men say right and many men say wrong. I might be more ready to speak my mind were it not that I greatly doubt some of those who cry loudest for liberty. I fear that once they had power, they would be the first to trample her underfoot. Liberty with some men means my liberty to do, and your liberty to suffer.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
topics: liberty
“His was a party whose distinctive and animating spirit was the love of freedom, which broke out upon occasion in the wildest vagaries of speech and doctrine. Yet it justified itself in its leaders, including Milton and Cromwell, who accorded to the consciences of others the freedom they demanded for their own - the love of liberty meaning not merely the love of enjoying freedom, but that respect for the thing itself which renders a man incapable of violating it in another.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
“Anger and stupidity are near of kin, and when a man whose mental movements are naturally deliberate is suddenly spurred, he is in great danger of acting the fool.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
“People are so ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is changed.”
“Then go - but beware of private quarrels in such a season of strife. You two may meet some day in mortal conflict on the battlefield. For my part, I would rather slay my friend than my enemy.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
topics: conflict
“To confess uprightness in one of the opposite party seemed to most men to involve treachery to their own.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
“It is not betrayal of feeling, but avoidance of duty, that constitutes weakness.”
“She was beginning to learn that a man may be right, although the creed for which he is ready to die may contain much that is wrong.”
― George MacDonald ,
from The Last Castle
topics: creed
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“İnsan iki şey beklemez mi dualarından: Günah işlememek, işleyince de bağışlanmak.”
“When sorrows come, they don't come as lonely outposts, but swell in troops”
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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.