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George MacDonald Quotes - Page 6

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Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him! That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?

Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him! That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?

George MacDonald
Character, Mind, Maps
George Macdonald (2012). “Unspoken Sermons Series I, II, and III”, p.270, Simon and Schuster

This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything.

George MacDonald
Christian, Wise, Men

Suppose you didn't know him, would that make any difference?' 'No,' said Willie, after thinking a little. 'Other people would know him if I didn't.' 'Yes, and if nobody knew him, God would know him, and anybody God has thought worth making, it's an honor to do anything for.

George MacDonald
Thinking, Differences, People
George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.4631, e-artnow

Every truth must be accompanied by some corresponding act.

George MacDonald
Truth, Corresponding

I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about his plans — I do not say for thinking about them.

George MacDonald
God, Obedience, Leaving Me
"The Marquis of Lossie".

In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might, Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.

George MacDonald
Father, Joy, Sorrow
George MacDonald (2015). “A Book of Strife in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul”, p.16, Sheba Blake Publishing

Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God.

George MacDonald
God, Men, Peculiar
George MacDonald (1867). “Unspoken Sermons”, p.110

But we believe – nay, Lord we only hope, That one day we shall thank thee perfectly For pain and hope and all that led or drove Us back into the bosom of thy love.

George MacDonald
Pain, Believe, One Day
George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13525, Delphi Classics

All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.

George MacDonald
Wise, Children, Heart
George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13260, Delphi Classics

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

George MacDonald
Faith, Ignorance, Knowing
George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.12445, Delphi Classics

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home”.

George MacDonald
Art, Home, Men

The ruin of a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he has laid, build upon it wood, hay, and stubble, fit only to be burnt. Therefore, if only to avoid his worst foes, his admirers, a man should avoid system. The more correct a system the worse will it be misunderstood; its professed admirers will take both its errors and their misconceptions of its truths, and hold them forth as its essence.

George MacDonald
Teaching, Men, Essence
George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.6149, e-artnow

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

George MacDonald
Thinking, Quality Not Quantity, Literature

The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.

George MacDonald
Thinking, Giving, Next
George MacDonald, U. C. Knoepflmacher (1999). “The Complete Fairy Tales”, p.9, Penguin

Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It does not work in the soul independently of all faculty or qualification there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion.

George MacDonald
Spiritual, Truth, Soul
George MacDonald (2015). “THOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE + PAUL FABER, SURGEON + THERE AND BACK - The Complete Series: The Curate's Awakening, The Lady's Confession & The Baron's Apprenticeship”, p.676, e-artnow

In the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; what men call death is but a shadow.

George MacDonald
Life, Men, Reality
George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.13002, Delphi Classics

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
Christian, Feet, Looks
George MacDonald, Rolland Hein (2004). “Creation in Christ: Unspoken Sermons”, p.336, Regent College Publishing

To love righteousness is to make it grow, not to avenge it. Throughout his life on earth, Jesus resisted every impulse to work more rapidly for a lower good.

George MacDonald
Jesus, Earth, Righteousness
George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13612, e-artnow

Afflictions are but the shadows of God's wings.

George MacDonald
God, Christian, Wings
George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.10063, e-artnow

Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through.

George MacDonald
Eye, Blue, Sky
George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.694, e-artnow

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

George MacDonald
Death, Sunset, Literature

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.

George MacDonald
Home, Men, Thinking
"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

He (God) can be revealed only to the child; perfectly, to the pure child only. All the discipline of the world is to make men children, that God may be revealed to them.

George MacDonald
Children, Men, Discipline
George MacDonald (2012). “Hope of the Gospel”, p.121, tredition

Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.

George MacDonald
One Day, Timely, Values

The face of the Son of God, who, instead of accepting the sacrifice of one of his creatures to satisfy his justice or support his dignity, gave himself utterly unto them, and therein to the Father by doing his lovely will; who suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like his, and lead them up to his perfection.

George MacDonald
Son, Men, Suffering
"Epea Aptera: Unspoken Sermons".

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