To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse. The only way to make them good is to be good, remembering well the beam and the mote. George MacDonald More Quotes by George MacDonald More Quotes From George MacDonald The word doctrine, as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory. George MacDonald doctrineteachingmean Some thinkers would feel sorely hampered if at liberty to use no forms but such as existed in nature, or to invent nothing save in accordance with the laws of the world of the senses; but George MacDonald libertylawdesire Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owes its very idea to existence. George MacDonald nothingnessexistenceideas Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty. George MacDonald difficultychoicesliterature If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it. George MacDonald readerifs 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. George MacDonald appreciatehealthexercise But God lets men have their playthings, like the children they are, that they may learn to distinguish them from true possessions. If they are not learning that he takes them from them, and George MacDonald tryingmenchildren All that man sees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship. The community of the centre of all creation suggests an interradiating connection and dependence George MacDonald communitymenideas Alas! how easily things go wrong! George MacDonald alas A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than George MacDonald bondagemen Ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration. George MacDonald shadowambitionevil There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy no metaphysician can analyse. George MacDonald rushingoxygenwhite Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through. George MacDonald eyeskyblue A God must have a God for company. George MacDonald love-lifelawson What can money do to console a man with a headache? George MacDonald headachemoneymen 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 strengthshininggiving Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon. George MacDonald lightprayerwish It's right to trust in God; but, if you don't stand to your halliards your craft'll miss stays, and your faith'll be blown out of the bolt-ropes in the turn of a marlinspike. George MacDonald ropecraftsmissing Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the door she must not enter. George MacDonald whitedoorsjoy And in thy own sermon, thou George MacDonald blessedfatherfall
