I doubt if we nuns are really as self-sacrificing as we must seem to be to you who live in the world. We don't give everything for nothing, you know. The mystery plays fair. Elizabeth Goudge More Quotes by Elizabeth Goudge More Quotes From Elizabeth Goudge Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life. Elizabeth Goudge respect nature life As this world becomes increasingly ugly, callous and materialistic it needs to be reminded that the old fairy stories are rooted in truth, that imagination is of value, that happy endings do, in fact, occur, and that the blue spring mist that make an ugly street look beautiful is just as real a thing as the street itself. Elizabeth Goudge real spring beautiful She long ago accepted the fact that happiness is like, swallows in spring. It may come and nest under your eaves or it may not. You cannot command it. Elizabeth Goudge easter spring long The sun is still there... even if clouds drift over it. Once you have experienced the reality of sunshine you may weep, but you will never feel ice about your heart again. Elizabeth Goudge sunshine heart inspirational Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible. Elizabeth Goudge detachment soul self There always comes, I think, a sort of peak in suffering at which either you win over your pain or your pain wins over you, according as to whether you can, or cannot, call up that extra ounce of endurance that helps you to break through the circle of yourself and do the hitherto impossible. That extra ounce carries you through 'le dernier quart d' heure.' Psychologist have a name for it, I believe. Christians call it the Grace of God. Elizabeth Goudge pain christian believe Nothing is ever finished and done with in this world. You may think a seed was finished and done with when it falls like a dead thing into the earth; but when it puts forth leaves and flowers next spring you see your mistake. Elizabeth Goudge flower mistake spring Could you understand the meaning of light if there were no darkness to point the contrast? Day and night, life and death, love and hatred, since none of these things can have any being at all apart from the existence of the other, you can no more separate them than you can separate the two sides of a coin. Elizabeth Goudge life-and-death light night Our home, our special country, is for all of us the place where we find liberation; a very difficult word ... that tries to describe something that can't be described but is the only thing worth having. Elizabeth Goudge special home country Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root. Elizabeth Goudge roots drinking integrity In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins. Elizabeth Goudge boredom should-have spring The child in us is always there, you know, and it's the best part of us, the winged part that travels farthest. Elizabeth Goudge childhood knows children All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart. Elizabeth Goudge empathy cry heart For she had discovered that as well as the evil web there was another. This too bound spirits together, but not in a tangle, it was a patterned web and one could see the silver pattern when the sun shone upon it. It seemed much frailer than the dark tangle, that had a hideous strength, but it might not be so always, not in the final reckoning. (The Child from the Sea) Elizabeth Goudge sea dark children Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing. Elizabeth Goudge hearing truth sound If one's intellectual equipment was not great, one's spiritual experience not deep, the result of doing one's very best could only seem very lightweight in comparison with the effort involved. But perhaps that was not important. The mysterious power that commanded men appeared to him to ask of them only obedience and the maximum of effort and to remain curiously indifferent as to the results. Elizabeth Goudge effort spiritual men ...there began to come to her a first dim realization of God's humility. Rejected by the proud in His own right by what humble means He chose to succor them; through the spirit of a child, a poor gypsy or an old man, by a song perhaps, or even it might be by the fall of a leaf or the scent of a flower. For His infinite and humble patience nothing was too small to advance His purpose of salvation and eternity was not too long for its accomplishment. Elizabeth Goudge flower song children In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried ... nothing is so warming and companionable. Elizabeth Goudge storm reading book Happy the man who lives long enough to acknowledge his ignorance Elizabeth Goudge ignorance men long Not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures. Elizabeth Goudge butterfly flower bird
