George MacDonald
Scottish minister, author and poet, 1824-1905
31 quotes.
Quotes by George MacDonald
- A man's labors must pass like the sunrises and sunsets of the world. The next thing, not the last, must be his care.
- A man's real belief is that which he lives by. What a man believes is the thing he does, not the thing he thinks.
- A true friend is forever a friend.
- Affliction is but the shadow of God's wing.
- All growth that is not toward God, is growing to decay.
- All the world is the temple of God. Its worship is ministration. The commonest service is Divine service.
- Ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration.
- Any faith in Him, however small, is better than any belief about Him, however great.
- Do the truth you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
- Doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about his plans.
- He who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey or teach a ragged class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all.
- 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.
- I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.
- If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
- In giving, a man receives more than he gives, and the more is in proportion to the worth of the thing given.
- It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow's burden is added to the burden of to-day that the weight is more than a man can bear.
- It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.
- Love alone is wisdom, love alone is power; and where love seems to fail, it is where self has stepped between and dulled the potency of its rays.
- Progress is the real cure for an overestimate of ourselves.
- The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done.
- The direst foe of courage is the fear itself, not the object of it; and the man who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more.
- The first thing in all progress is to leave something behind.
- The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self.
- The principal part of faith is patience.
- The world is a fine thing to save, but a wretch to worship.
- 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.
- To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
- To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.
- To try to be brave is to be brave.
- Trust to God to weave your thread into the great web, though the pattern shows it not yet.
- Turn your back on fear, and your face to whatever may come.