Quotes by George MacDonald

• Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.
• You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on water - an inch deep and then the mud.
• It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.
• It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing.
• Love is the opener as well as closer of eyes.
• 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.
• Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom.
• The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, and the last duty done.
• 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.
• To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.
• When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
• The principle part of faith is patience.
• It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.
• We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well.
• If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
• To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.
• To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.
• There are thousands willing to do great things for one willing to do a small thing.
• The first thing a kindness deserves is acceptance, the second, transmission.
• Afflictions are but the shadows of God's wings.
• It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.
• 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.
• Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
• Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon.
• Attitudes are more important than facts.
• Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.
• Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
• Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
• How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.
• I find that doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.