Quote

We must do the thing we must Before the thing we may We are unfit for any trust Till we can and do obey.

George MacDonald

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George MacDonald
Age: 80 †
Born: 1824
Born: December 10
Died: 1905
Died: September 18
Author
Cleric
Journalist
Minister
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Theologian
Writer
Must
Thing
Unfit
Obey
Till
Trust
May

More quotes by George MacDonald

Image
But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken it. He has only drawn away from it a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him.
George MacDonald
Image
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.
George MacDonald
Image
As no scripture is of private interpretation, so is there no feeling in a human heart which exists in that heart alone - which is not, in some form or degree, in every human heart.
George MacDonald
Image
For the bliss of the animals lies in this, that, on their lower level, they shadow the bliss of those--few at any moment on the earth--who do not 'look before and after, and pine for what is not,' but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now.
George MacDonald
Image
I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one.
George MacDonald
Image
If those who had set themselves to explain the various theories of Christianity had set themselves instead to do the will of the Master, how different the world would be now!
George MacDonald
Image
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.
George MacDonald
Image
A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it is not an allegory.
George MacDonald
Image
She would wonder what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing it.
George MacDonald
Image
For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea, Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor Shall cease till men have chosen the better part.
George MacDonald
Image
The Lord never came to deliver men from the consequences of their sins while yet those sins remained...Yet men, loving their sins and feeling nothing of their dread hatefulness, have, consistent with their low condition, constantly taken this word concerning the Lord to mean that he came to save them from the punishment of their sins.
George MacDonald
Image
I am so tried by the things said about God. I understand God's patience with the wicked, but I do wonder how he can be so patient with the pious!
George MacDonald
Image
The ideal is the only absolute real and it must become the real in the individual life as well, however impossible they may count it who never tried it.
George MacDonald
Image
Alas! how easily things go wrong!
George MacDonald
Image
O Christ, my life, possess me utterly. Take me and make a little Christ of me. If I am anything but thy father's son, 'Tis something not yet from the darkness won. Oh, give me light to live with open eyes. Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.
George MacDonald
Image
I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken an impossibility, undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind.
George MacDonald
Image
To the dim and bewildered vision of humanity, God's care is more evident in some instances than in others and upon such instances men seize, and call them providences. It is well that they can but it would be gloriously better if they could believe that the whole matter is one grand providence.
George MacDonald
Image
But when we are following the light, even its extinction is a guide.
George MacDonald
Image
For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.
George MacDonald
Image
Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through.
George MacDonald