George MacDonald Quotes

243 Sourced Quotes

There is no harm in being afraid. The only harm is in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in his face and he will run away.

George MacDonald
Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever-unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to Him.

George MacDonald
I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himself to do.

George MacDonald
One who not merely beholds the outward shows of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them, whose garment and revelation they are-if he be such, I say, he will stand, for more than a moment, speechless with something akin to that which made the morning stars sing together.

George MacDonald
Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue.

George MacDonald
If we will but let our God and Father work His will with us, there can be no limit to His enlargement of our existence

George MacDonald
I would not favour a fiction to keep a whole world out of hell. The hell that a lie would keep any man out of is doubtless the very best place for him to go to. It is truth... that saves the world.

George MacDonald
But words are vain; reject them all— They utter but a feeble part: Hear thou the depths from which they call, The voiceless longing of my heart.

George MacDonald
So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation. Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without which he yet could not be, and whereof he is in part compounded.

George MacDonald
He who seeks the Father more than anything He can give, is likely to have what he asks, for he is not likely to ask amiss.

George MacDonald
Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner.

George MacDonald
There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.

George MacDonald
The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt,
In that fear doubteth thee.

George MacDonald
To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.

George MacDonald
Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This in the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest.

George MacDonald
It is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood.

George MacDonald
I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.

George MacDonald
It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden, however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and soul than He has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from all dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set us free.

George MacDonald
Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all cries.

George MacDonald
There is no inborn longing that shall not be fulfilled. I think that is as certain as the forgiveness of sins.

George MacDonald
Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon.

George MacDonald
Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.

George MacDonald
It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.

George MacDonald
To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth.

George MacDonald
God Himself — His thoughts, His will, His love, His judgments are men's home. To think His thoughts, to choose His will, to judge His judgments, and thus to know that He is in us, with us, is to be at home. And to pass through the valley of the shadow of death is the way home, but only thus, that as all changes have hitherto lead us nearer to this home, the knowledge of God, so this greatest of all outward changes — for it is but an outward change — will surely usher us into a region where there will be fresh possibilities of drawing nigh in heart, soul, and mind to the Father of us all.

George MacDonald
God is nearer to you than any thought or feeling of yours... Do not be afraid.

George MacDonald
Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale; then read this and that as well, and you will see what is a fairytale. Were I further begged to describe the fairytale, or define what it is, I would make answer, that I should as soon think of describing the abstract human face, or stating what must go to constitute a human being. A fairytale is just a fairytale, as a face is just a face; and of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.

George MacDonald
What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good.

George MacDonald
But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another's - not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!

George MacDonald
That which is in a man, not that which lies beyond his vision is the main factor in what is about to befall him: the operation upon him is the event.

George MacDonald