To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved. - George MacDonald
No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best: therefore many things that God would gladly give us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until we ask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things. - George MacDonald
You must give him time,' said her grandmother;'and you must be content not to be believed for a while. It is very hard to bear; but I have had to bear it, and shall have to bear it yet. I will take care of what Curdie thinks of you in the end. You must let him go now. - George MacDonald
Obedience is the opener of eyes. - George MacDonald
Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly. - George MacDonald
Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness. - George MacDonald
To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power. - George MacDonald
Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire. - George MacDonald
With every morn my life afresh must breakThe crust of self, gathered about me fresh;That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shakeThe darkness out of me, and rend the meshThe spider-devils spin out of the flesh-Eager to net the soul before it wake,That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake. - George MacDonald
Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin.The only vengeance worth having on sinis to make the sinner himself its executioner. - George MacDonald
The nearer persons come to each other, the greater is the room and the more are the occasions for courtesy; but just in proportion to their approach the gentleness of most men diminishes. - George MacDonald
How old are you?""Ten," answered Tangle."You don't look like it," said the lady."How old are you, please?" returned Tangle."Thousands of years old," answered the lady."You don't look like it," said Tangle."Don't I? I think I do. Don't you see how beautiful I am! - George MacDonald
I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking. - George MacDonald
I can but pray the Father o' a' to haud his e'e upon her, an' his airms aboot her, an' keep aff the hardenin' o' the hert 'at despises coonsel! - George MacDonald
...as no one can be just without love, so no one can truly report without understanding. - George MacDonald
To cease to wonder is to fall plumb-down from the childlike to the commonplace—the most undivine of all moods intellectual. Our nature can never be at home among things that are not wonderful to us. - George MacDonald
Who can give a man this, his own name? - George MacDonald
Heed not thy feeling. Do thy work. - George MacDonald
I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first. - George MacDonald
I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five. - George MacDonald
If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. - George MacDonald