Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Difficulty
One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Selfishness
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: Society, Liberty, Freedom
Progress is the real cure for an over estimate of ourselves.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Progress
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
To the dim and bewildered vision of humanity, God’s care is more evident in some instances than in others; and upon such instances men seize, and call them providences. It is well that they can; but it would be gloriously better if they could believe that the whole matter is one grand providence.
—George MacDonald
The hell that a lie would keep a man from, is doubtless the very best place for him to go.
—George MacDonald
No one is likely to remember what is entirely uninteresting to him.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Memory
Fear is faithlessness.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Fear, Anxiety
To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Riches, Contentment
The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty well done.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Preparation, Planning, Duty
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Sincerity, Candor
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
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
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: Work, Rest, Idleness
They are not the best students who are most dependent on books. What can be got out of them is at best only material; a man must build his house for himself.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Study
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
All growth that is not toward God, is growing to decay.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Progress
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
I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Obedience, Duty, 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
God chooses that men should be tried, but let a man beware of tempting his neighbor. God knows how and how much, and where and when. Man is his brother’s keeper, and must keep him according to his knowledge.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Temptation
Trust to God to weave your thread into the great web, though the pattern shows it not yet.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Patience
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
When a man argues for victory and not for truth, he is sure of just one ally, that is the devil.—Not the defeat of the intellect, but the acceptance of the heart is the only true object in fighting with the sword of the spirit.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Argument
Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Value of Time, Time Management
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
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
Do the truth ye know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Action, Duty
As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other, you will find what is needful for you in a book.
—George MacDonald
Topics: Reading
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- J. M. Barrie Scottish Novelist
- Robert Louis Stevenson Scottish Novelist
- Tobias Smollett Scottish Poet
- Hugh Prather American Christian Author
- Max Lucado American Christian Author
- Walter Scott Scottish Novelist
- Robert W. Service Scottish Poet
- Elisabeth Elliot American Christian Author
- Lewis B. Smedes American Christian Theologian
- Thomas Browne English Author, Physician
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