Inspirational Quotes by George MacDonald
“King: ...But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, — Hamlet: [Aside.] A little more than kin, but less than kind.”
“His purse is empty already. All's golden words are spent.”
“Don't put your thoughts on your tongue, nor in your deed a wicked thought.”
“Hamlet. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue;”
“Cuantos accidentes ocurren, todos me acusan, excitando a la venganza mi adormecido aliento. ¿Qué es el hombre que funda su mayor felicidad, y emplea todo su tiempo solo en dormir y alimentarse? Es un bruto y no más. No. Aquél que nos formó dotados de tan extenso conocimiento que con él podemos ver lo pasado y futuro, no nos dio ciertamente esta facultad, esta razón divina, para que estuviera en nosotros sin uso y torpe. Sea, pues, brutal negligencia, sea tímido escrúpulo que no se atreve a penetrar los casos venideros (proceder en que hay más parte de cobardía que de prudencia), yo no sé para qué existo, diciendo siempre: tal cosa debo hacer; puesto que hay en mí suficiente razón, voluntad, fuerza y medios para ejecutarla. Por todas partes halló ejemplos grandes que me estimulan. Prueba es bastante ese fuerte y numeroso ejército, conducido por un Príncipe joven y delicado, cuyo espíritu impelido de ambición generosa desprecia la incertidumbre de los sucesos, y expone su existencia frágil y mortal a los golpes de la fortuna a la muerte, a los peligros más terribles, y todo por un objeto de tan leve interés. El ser grande no consiste, por cierto, en obrar sólo cuando ocurre un gran motivo; sino en saber hallar una razón plausible de contienda, aunque sea pequeña la causa; cuando se trata de adquirir honor. ¿Cómo, pues, permanezco yo en ocio indigno, muerto mi padre alevosamente, mi madre envilecida... estímulos capaces de excitar mi razón y mi ardimiento, que yacen dormidos? Mientras para vergüenza mía veo la destrucción inmediata de veinte mil hombres, que por un capricho, por una estéril gloria van al sepulcro como a sus lechos, combatiendo por una causa que la multitud es incapaz de comprender, por un terreno que aún no es suficiente sepultura a tantos cadáveres. ¡Oh! De hoy más, o no existirá en mi fantasía idea ninguna, o cuántas forme serán sangrientas.”
“La conciencia, así, hace a todos los cobardes y, así, el natural color de la resolución se desvanece en tenues sombras del pensamiento; y así empresas de importancia, y de gran valía, llegan a torcer su rumbo al considerarse para nunca volver a merecer el nombre de la acción.”
“It would be better for you that, after the death, you receive a bad tombstone inscription, then let them talk badly about you, while living.”
“Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee.”
“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’er-step not the modesty of nature;”
“Пусть сахарный язык Дурацкую облизывает пышность И клонится проворное колено Там, где втираться прибыльно. Ты слышишь? Едва мой дух стал выбирать свободно И различать людей, его избранье Отметило тебя; ты человек, Который и в страданиях не страждет И с равной благодарностью приемлет Гнев и дары судьбы; благословен, Чьи кровь и разум так отрадно слиты, Что он не дудка в пальцах у Фортуны, На нем играющей. Будь человек Не раб страстей, — и я его замкну В средине сердца, в самом сердце сердца, Как и тебя.”
“There are times, and those times many, when the cares of this world-with no right to any part in our thought, seeing that they are either unreasonable or God imperfect- so blind the eyes of the soul to the radiance of the eternally true, that they see it only as if it ought to be true, not as if it must be true; as if it it might be true in the region of thought, but could not be true in the region of fact.”
“You must be strong with my strength and blessed with my blessedness, for I have no other to give you."-George MacDonald (what God says of us)”
“A name is one of those things one can give away and keep all the same.”
topics: names
“That's all nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you mean." "Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?”
topics: the-princess-and-the-goblin
“It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellow men.”
topics: politics
“And earth was given back to earth, to mingle with the rest of the stuff the great workman works withal.”
topics: death
“True business can never be left in any shop. It is a care, white or black, that sits behind every horseman.”
“Then she would laugh like the very spirit of fun; only in her laugh there was something missing. What it was, I find myself unable to describe. I think it was a certain tone, depending upon the possibility of sorrow--MORBIDEZZA, perhaps. She never smiled.”
topics: the-light-princess
“On a summer morning she woke to a sense of returning health. She had been lying like a waste shore, at low spring-tide, covered with dry seaweeds, withered jelly-fishes, and a multitudinous life that gasped for the ocean: at last the cook washing throb of the great sea of bliss, whose fountain is the heart of God, had stolen upon her consciousness, and she knew that she lived.”
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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.