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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

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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
May
Absolutes
Wells
Absolute
Well
Ideals
Must
Tried
Real
However
Never
Impossible
Life
Individual
Count
Become
Ideal

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Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death!
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Forgiveness is the giving and so the receiving of life. the latter may be an impulse of a moment of heat whereas the former is a cold and deliberate choice of the heart.
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Why should my love be powerless to help another?
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Until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than secure.
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Life and religion are one, or neither is any thing.
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All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there are more plans than it looked for...There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all centre.
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There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy no metaphysician can analyse.
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By all means rid yourself of an impoverished faith.
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I would not favour a fiction to keep a whole world out of hell. The hell that a lie would keep any man out of is doubtless the very best place for him to go to. It is truth... that saves the world.
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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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When I can no more stir my soul to move, and life is but the ashes of a fire when I can but remember that my heart once used to live and love, long and aspire- O, be thou then the first, the one thou art be thou the calling, before all answering love, and in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.
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There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.
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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?
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A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it is not an allegory.
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I am sometimes almost terrified at the scope of the demands made upon me, at the perfection of the self-abandonment required of me yet outside of such absoluteness can be no salvation.
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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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He (God) loves what I shall be.
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In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might, Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.
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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.
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