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
But I begin to think the chief difficulty in writing a book must be to keep out what does not belong to it.
But more impressive than the facts and figures as to height, width, age, etc., are the entrancing beauty and tranquility that pervade the forest, the feelings of peace, awe and reverence that it inspires.
The birds, the poets of the animal creation - what though they never get beyond the lyrical! - awoke to utter their own joy, and awake like joy in others of God's children.
We are not made for law, we are made for love.
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.
The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom of truth and love.
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over
What does God want me to do?”, not “What will God do if I do so and so?
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.
Half of the misery in the world comes from trying to look, instead of trying to be, what one is not.
As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.
All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children.
One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth.