Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“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.”
“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.”
“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”
“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?”
“Then what I have to do Will want true color—tears perchance for blood.”
“And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts; Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause; And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on th’ inventors’ heads—all this can I Truly deliver. (5.2.371-78) The”
“Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness.”
“…but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death. — Act IV, Scene vii”
“why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on:”
topics: lust
“A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself.”
“The cessation of labor affords but the necessary occasion; makes it possible, as it were, for the occupant of an outlying station in the wilderness to return to his Father’s house for fresh supplies…. The child-soul goes home at night, and returns in the morning to the labors of the school.”
“A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast the less he knows it.”
“I will attempt no historical or theological classification of MacDonald’s thought, partly because I have not the learning to do so, still more because I am no great friend to such pigeonholing. One very effective way of silencing the voice of conscience is to impound in an Ism the teacher through whom it speaks: the trumpet no longer seriously disturbs our rest when we have murmured “Thomist,” “Barthian,” or “Existentialist.”
“I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.”
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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.