Quote

Alas! this time is never the time for self-denial, it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence.

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
Next
Indulgence
Self
Contemplating
Much
Alas
Always
Denial
Never
Pleasant
Time
Side
Sides
Abstinence
Upon
Contemplate

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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.
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Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This in the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest.
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Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale.
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Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon.
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A true friend is forever a friend.
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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!
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The whole trouble is that we won't let God help us.
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You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. (Quoted by C.S.Lewis in Mere Christianity)
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I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himself to do.
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What a man is lies as certainly upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintances may be able to read it. The very intercourse with him may have rendered it more difficult.
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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.
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As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.
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Age is not all decay it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
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No story ever really ends, and I think I know why.
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No man can make haste to be rich without going against the will of God, in which case it is the one frightful thing to be successful.
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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!
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It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.
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Things come to the poor that can't get in at the door of the rich. Their money somehow blocks it up. It is a great privilege to be poor--one that no man covets, and brat a very few have sought to retain, but one that yet many have learned to prize.
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