George MacDonald Quotes (59 Quotes)


    It is the half-Christian clergy of every denomination that are the main cause of the so-called failure of the church of Christ


    No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.


    There is more hid in Christ than we shall ever learn, here or there either but they that begin first to inquire will soonest be gladdened with revelation and with them He will be best pleased, for the slowness of His disciples troubled Him of old. To say that we must wait for the other world, to know the mind of Him who came t o this world to give Himself to us, seems to me the foolishness of a worldly and lazy spirit. The Son of God is the teacher of men, giving to them of His Spirit that Spirit which manifests the deep things of God, being to a man the mind of Christ. The great heresy of the Church of the present day is unbelief in this Spirit.


    Many a life has been injured by the constant expectation of death. It is life we have to do with, not death. The best preparation for the night is to work diligently while the day lasts. The best preparation for death is life.

    We're looking into conserving landfill space. We're looking to generate energy without relying on fossil fuel. So there's a lot of interest in using this waste stream and turning it into a beneficial product.

    This is and has been the Fathers work from the beginning-to bring us into the home of His heart.

    Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom.

    Do you think that the work God gives us to do is never easy Jesus says that His yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do God's work just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy work is His work but there may be a very bad pride in it.... Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however easy any work may be, it cannot be well done without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally take thought about the morrow in which no work can be done, any more than in yesterday.

    The first thing a kindness deserves is acceptance, the second, transmission.

    Now I want you to think that in life troubles will come, which seem as if they never would pass away. The night and storm look as if they would last forever but the calm and the morning cannot be stayed the storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for God is Peace.

    Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.


    I find that doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.

    You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on water - an inch deep and then the mud.

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

    But for money and the need of it, there would not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good if divinely used. Give it plenty of air and it is sweet as the hawthorn shut it up and it cankers and breeds worms.

    Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.


    Most of the Psalms were born in a wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through the fire. The greatest poets have learned in suffering what they taught in song. In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterwards wrote, and we may thank Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim's Progress. Take comfort, afflicted Christian When God is about to make pre-eminent use of a person, He puts them in the fire.

    Where did you come from, baby dear Out of the everywhere into here.

    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.

    The more I work with the body, keeping my assumptions in a temporary state of reservation, the more I appreciate and sympathize with a given disease. The body no longer appears as a sick or irrational demon, but as a process with its own inner logic and wisdom.


    To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse. The only way to make them good is to be good, remembering well the beam and the mote.

    The two pillars of 'political correctness' area) willful ignoranceb) a steadfast refusal to face the truth

    God desires not that He may say to them, 'Look how mighty I am, and go down upon your knees and worship,' for power alone was never yet worthy of prayer but that He may say thus 'Look, my children, you will never be strong but with my strength. I have no other to give you. And that you can get only by trusting in me. I can not give it you any other way. There is no other way.'

    It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing.

    If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.

    It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.


    Do you so love the truth and the right that you welcome, or at least submit willingly to, the idea of an exposure of what in you is yet unknown to yourself an exposure that may redound to the glory of the truth by making you ashamed and humbled... Are you willing to be made glad that you were wrong when you thought others were wrong... We may trust God with our past as heartily as with our future. It will not hurt us so long as we do not try to hide things, so long as we are ready to bow our heads in hearty shame where it is fit that we should be ashamed. For to be ashamed is a holy and blessed thing. Shame is a thing to shame only those who want to appear, not those who want to be. Shame is to shame those who want to pass their examination, not those who would get into the heart of things... To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth.

    Really what they told us today is that number 7 should be running for the next couple of years.

    How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource We go to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.

    Faith is that which, knowing the Lord's will, goes and does it or, not knowing it, stands and waits, content in ignorance as in knowledge, because God wills neither pressing into the hidden future, nor careless of the knowledge which opens the path of action.

    Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.

    How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.

    The Root of All Rebellion It is because we are not near enough to Thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own different from thine

    It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

    It is by loving and by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.

    When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.

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

    People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.

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

    Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood. Doubt must precede every deeper assurance.


    Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

    Existence was given us for action. Our worth is determined by the good deed we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel,

    The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, and the last duty done.


    More George MacDonald Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - God - Life - Friendship - Future - Charity - Wisdom & Knowledge - Truth - Jesus Christ - Belief & Faith - Nature - Present - World - Night - Power - Death & Dying - Prayers - Work & Career - Christianity - View All George MacDonald Quotations

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