Quote

As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.

George MacDonald

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George MacDonald
Age: 80 †
Born: 1824
Born: December 10
Died: 1905
Died: September 18
Author
Cleric
Journalist
Minister
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Theologian
Writer
Even
Although
Sorrows
Much
Sorrow
Sweetest
Every
Joy
Pleasures
Life
Pleasure
Deepest
Cannot
Note
Truth
Truths
Intermingled
Music
Sadness
Tinge
Must
Notes
Unfold

More quotes by George MacDonald

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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.
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Common people, whether lords or shop-keepers, are slow to understand that possession, whether in the shape of birth or lands or money or intellect, is a small affair in the difference between men.
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Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam.
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We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' What is that, grandmother?' To understand other people.' Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.
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A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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One chief cause of the amount of unbelief in the world is tha tthose who have seen something of the glory of Christ set themselves to theorize concerning him rather than to obey him.
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In the hearts of witches, love and hate lie close together and often tumble over each other.
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Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.
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As to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement.
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Those are not the tears of repentance!... Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates.
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Remember, then, that whoever does not mean good is always in danger of harm. But I try to give everybody fair play, and those that are in the wrong are in far more need of it always than those who are in the right: they can afford to do without it.
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To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lie against God to say that it is therefore right, is to lie against the very spirit of God.
George MacDonald
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The mind of the many is not the mind of God.
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There is an aching that is worse than any pain.
George MacDonald
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In low theologies, hell is invariably the deepest truth, and the love of God is not so deep as hell.
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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.
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And in thy own sermon, thou That the sparrow falls dost allow, It shall not cause me any alarm For neither so comes the bird to harm, Seeing our Father, thou hast said, Is by the sparrow's dying bed Therefore it is a blessed place, And the sparrow in high grace.
George MacDonald