George MacDonald
George MacDonald
George MacDonaldwas a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. His writings have been cited as a major literary influence by many notable authors including W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de la Mare, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1824
God is the God of the animals in a far lovelier way, I suspect, than many of us dare to think, but he will not be the God of a man by making a good beast of him.
You would not think any duty small, If you yourself were great.
We have to do with God, to whom no one can look without the need of being good waking up in his heart; to think about God is to begin to be good.
It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.
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.
I tell you, there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!
There is no inborn longing that shall not be fulfilled. I think that is as certain as the forgiveness of sins.
God Himself - His thoughts, His will, His love, His judgments are men's home. To think His thoughts, to choose His will, to judge His judgments, and thus to know that He is in us, with us, is to be at home.
A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter and thinking himself a good Christian.
For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition; and that is, not to know it, but to think himself a respectable man.
We should teach our children to think no more of their bodies when dead than they do of their hair when cut off, or of their old clothes when they have done with them.
How many people would like to be good, if only they might be good without taking trouble about it! They do not like goodness well enough to hunger and thirst after it, or to sell all that they have that they may buy it; they will not batter at the gate of the kingdom of heaven; but they look with pleasure on this or that aerial castle of righteousness, and think it would be rather nice to live in it.
No story ever really ends, and I think I know why.
The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.