George MacDonald Quotes

243 Sourced Quotes

Until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than secure.

George MacDonald
The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms — which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation. When such forms are new embodiments of old truths, we call them products of the Imagination; when they are mere inventions, however lovely, I should call them the work of the Fancy: in either case, Law has been diligently at work.

George MacDonald
Division has done more to hide Christ from the view of men than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken.

George MacDonald
Yet I know that good is coming to me—that good is always coming; though few have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. 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. And so, FAREWELL.

George MacDonald
"But surely you would explain your idea to one who asked you?"
I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one. Any key to a work of imagination would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd. The tale is there, not to hide, but to show: if it show nothing at your window, do not open your door to it; leave it out in the cold. To ask me to explain, is to say, "Roses! Boil them, or we won't have them!" My tales may not be roses, but I will not boil them.
So long as I think my dog can bark, I will not sit up to bark for him.

George MacDonald
To cease to wonder is to fall plumb-down from the childlike to the commonplace—the most undivine of all moods intellectual. Our nature can never be at home among things that are not wonderful to us.

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
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
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
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
We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments.... Each, putting his foot in the footprint of the Master, and so defacing it, turns to examine how far his neighbor's footprint corresponds with that which he still calls the Master's, although it is but his own.

George MacDonald
I think the reason children get tired of their toys so soon is just that it is against human nature to be really interested in what is of no use. If you say that a beautiful thing is always interesting, I answer, that a beautiful thing is of the highest use. Is not the diamond that flashes all its colours into the heart of a poet as useful as the diamond with which the glazier divides the sheets of glass into panes for our windows?

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

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