George MacDonald (1824–1905) was a Scottish novelist, lecturer, and poet. Often regarded as the founding father of modern fantasy writing, he was the most highly regarded of children’s writers of the nineteenth century. MacDonald also wrote Christian allegories of man’s pilgrimage back to God.
Born in the farming country of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, MacDonald was educated at the University of Aberdeen and Highbury College, London. He became a Congregational minister but left the ministry in 1853 to earmark himself to literature.
MacDonald incorporated his affection for Northeast Scotland into his writings, especially those for children. From the recollections of his childhood, he developed a distinct meaning of “childlikeness.” His ability to connect the worlds of the natural and the supernatural (which, he claimed, happens most natural in the mind of a child or “childlike” reader) influenced Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Maurice Sendak.
MacDonald’s notable works include the novels David Elginbrod (1863,) Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865,) Malcolm (1875,) and Donal Grant (3 vols., 1883.) At the Back of the North Wind (1871) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872) are deeply symbolic, with elements of Christian mysticism.
MacDonald’s books reveal his firm religious faith, moral enthusiasm, and Christian optimism. He was also the author of several theological works, including Unspoken Sermons (1867, 1885, and 1889) and The Miracles of Our Lord (1886.) His adult works have enjoyed a revival lately, especially among evangelical Christians.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by George MacDonald
The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty well done.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Preparation, Planning, Duty
I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Obedience, Duty, God
Ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Ambition, Goals
In giving, a man receives more than he gives; and the more is in proportion to the worth of the thing given.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Giving, Charity
God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity still in the cloud, the oil still in the earth. How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.
—George MacDonald
Topics: God, Adversity
Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Trust
The seed dies into a new life, and so does man.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Immortality
You can’t live on amusement. It is the froth on water—an inch deep and then the mud.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Pleasure
Division has done more to hide Christ from the view of all men than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Religion
The principal part of faith is patience.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Part of The Whole, Faith, Patience, Belief
It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow’s burden is added to the burden of to-day that the weight is more than a man can bear.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Worry, Anticipation, Difficulties, The Future, Tomorrow
God never gave a man a thing to do, concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.
—George MacDonald
One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Selfishness
If, instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Gifts, Thought, Friendship
Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness—the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Idleness, Rest, Work
Progress is the real cure for an over estimate of ourselves.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Progress
Trust to God to weave your thread into the great web, though the pattern shows it not yet.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Patience
The hell that a lie would keep a man from, is doubtless the very best place for him to go.
—George MacDonald
How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Oddity, Death, Dying, Peculiarity
If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Honesty, Truth, Character, Encouragement, Cheerfulness
Beauty and sadness always go together.
Nature thought beauty too rich to go forth
Upon the earth without a meet alloy.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Beauty
Afflictions are but the shadows of God’s wings.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Justice, Trials
To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Riches, Contentment
One of the good things that come of a true marriage is, that there is one face on which changes come without your seeing them; or rather there is one face which you can still see the same, through all the shadows which years have gathered upon it.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Marriage
There are many things in which one and the other loses; but if it is essential to any transaction that only one side shall gain, the thing is not of G0d.
—George MacDonald
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Age, Youth, Aging
It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow that weigh a man down. For the needs of today we have corresponding strength given.—For the morrow we are told to trust.—It is not ours yet.
—George MacDonald
Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Forgiveness
This is a sane, wholesome, practical, working faith: That it is a man’s business to do the will of God; second, that God himself takes on the care of that man; and third, that therefore that man ought never to be afraid of anything.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Serenity
We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Value of a Day, Time Management, Carpe-diem
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.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Money
Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Freedom, Liberty, Society
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Age, Aging
God’s thoughts, his will, his love, his judgments are all man’s home. To think his thoughts, to choose his will, to love his loves, to judge his judgments, and thus to know that he is in us, is to be at home.
—George MacDonald
Topics: God
There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is false is no source of might. It is the truth shining from behind that gives the strength to disbelieve.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Strength
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Candor, Sincerity
I could never draw the line between meanness and dishonesty.—What is mean, so far as I can see, slides by indistinguishable gradations into what is dishonest.
—George MacDonald
Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Divinity, Faith, God
Alas! how easily things go wrong; a sigh too much or a kiss too long, and there follows a mist and a weeping rain, and life is never the same again.
—George MacDonald
Do the truth ye know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Duty, Action
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