The Complete Works of George MacDonald

he was getting rather stupid - one of the chief signs of which was that he believed less and less in things he had never seen. At the same time I do not think he was ever so stupid as to imagine that this was a sign of superior faculty and strength of mind. (Location 140300)

'Come, young Curdie, what are you thinking of?' 'How do you know I'm thinking of anything?' asked Curdie. 'Because you're not saying anything.' 'Does it follow then that, as you are saying so much, you're not thinking at all?' said Curdie. (Location 140645)

But they did not lose courage, for there is a kind of capillary attraction in the facing of two souls, that lifts faith quite beyond the level to which either could raise it alone: (Location 140743)

'you have got to thank me that you are so poor, Peter. I have seen to that, and it has done well for both you and me, my friend. Things come to the poor that can't get in at the door of the rich. Their money somehow blocks it up. It is a great privilege to be poor, Peter - one that no man ever coveted, and but a very few have sought to retain, but one that yet many have learned to prize. (Location 140768)

'You may ask me as many as you please - that is, so long as they are sensible. Only I may take a few thousand years to answer some of them. But that's nothing. Of all things time is the cheapest.' (Location 140782)

'Shapes are only dresses, Curdie, and dresses are only names. That which is inside is the same all the time.' (Location 140797)

it is one thing what you or your father may think about me, and quite another what a foolish or bad man may see in me. (Location 140802)

'But if you want me to know you again, ma'am, for certain sure,' said Curdie, 'could you not give me some sign, or tell me something about you that never changes - or some other way to know you, or thing to know you by?' 'No, Curdie; that would be to keep you from knowing me. You must know me in quite another way from that. It would not be the least use to you or me either if I were to make you know me in that way. It would be but to know the sign of Me - not to know me myself. it would be no better than if I were to take this emerald out of my crown and give it to you to take home with you, and you were to call it me, and talk to it as if it heard and saw and loved you. Much good that would do you, Curdie! No; you must do what you can to know me, and if you do, you will. (Location 140825)

did it occur to you to think how it was they fell to talking about me at all? It was because I came to them; I was beside them all the time they were talking about me, though they were far enough from knowing it, and had very little besides foolishness to say.' (Location 140834)

It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold, that take the dignity out of a man, and make him look mean. (Location 140861)

you must mind exactly what words I use, because although the right words cannot do exactly what I want them to do, the wrong words will certainly do what I do not want them to do. (Location 141011)

it is always what they do, whether in their minds or their bodies, that makes men go down to be less than men, that is, beasts, (Location 141015)

there is one beautiful and awful thing about it, that if any one gifted with this perception once uses it for his own ends, it is taken from him, and then, not knowing that it is gone, he is in a far worse condition than before, for he trusts to what he has not got.' (Location 141027)

You must learn to use far less direct directions than that. You must not be like a dull servant that needs to be told again and again before he will understand. You have orders enough to start with, and you will find, as you go on, and as you need to know, what you have to do. (Location 141096)

Be true and honest and fearless, and all shall go well with you and your work, and all with whom your work lies, (Location 141100)

And my wife, that's your mother, Curdie, she's a true lady, you may take my word for it, for it's she that makes me want to be a true gentleman. (Location 141145)

he had come to think that so long as a man wants to do right he may go where he can: when he can go no farther, then it is not the way. (Location 141778)

Lina slid through the servants like a shapeless terror through a guilty mind, (Location 142050)

that same day was Religion day, and not a few of the clergy, always glad to seize on any passing event to give interest to the dull and monotonic grind of their intellectual machines, made this remarkable one the ground of discourse to their congregations. (Location 142633)

They were soon friends, for the best people understand each other the easiest, (Location 142719)

To become able to make something is, I think, necessary to thorough development. I would rather have son of mine a carpenter, a watchmaker, a wood-carver, a shoemaker, a jeweller, a blacksmith, a bookbinder, than I would have him earn his bread as a clerk in a counting-house. Not merely is the cultivation of operant faculty a better education in faculty, but it brings the man nearer to every thing operant; humanity unfolds itself to him the readier; its ways and thoughts and modes of being grow the clearer to both intellect and heart. The poetry of life, the inner side of that nature which comes from him who, on the Sabbath-days even, "worketh hitherto," rises nearer the surface to meet the eyes of the man who  makes.  What advantage the carpenter of Nazareth gathered from his bench, is the inheritance of every workman, in proportion as he does divine, that is, honest work. (Location 202329)

a denial involving no assertion, cannot witness to any truth; nor did he perceive that denial in his case meant nothing more than non-acceptance of things asserted. (Location 202538)

no man really denies a thing which he knows only by the words that stand for it. When John Tuke denied the God in his notion, he denied only a God that could have no existence. (Location 202540)

John cast aside an allegiance to God which had never been more than a mockery, and set about delivering his race from the fear of a person who did not exist. For, true enough, there was no God of the kind John denied; only, what if, in delivering his kind from the tyranny of a false God, he aided in hiding from them the love of a true God--of a God that did and ought to exist? (Location 202545)

The old man had already somehow impressed him. If he had not, like his father, bid good-bye to superstition, there was in him a power that was not in his father--a power like that he found in his favourite books. (Location 202791)

He even cherished unconsciously the feeling that his faculty was a merit. He took the credit of his individual humanity, as if the good working of his brain, the thing he most admired, was attributable to his own will and forethought. The idea had never arisen in that brain, that he was in the world by no creative intent of his own. (Location 202809)

He even cherished unconsciously the feeling that his faculty was a merit. He took the credit of his individual humanity, as if the good working of his brain, the thing he most admired, was attributable to his own will and forethought. (Location 202809)

A man's patent of manhood is, that he can call upon God--not the God of any theology, right or wrong, but the God out of whose heart he came, and in whose heart he is. This is his highest power--that which constitutes his original likeness to God. (Location 202814)

She had, that is, an oppressive sense of the claims of a supernal power, but no feeling of the relationship which gives those claims, no knowledge of the loving help offered with the presentation of the claims. (Location 202830)

She had no window to let in the perpendicular light of heaven; all the light she had was the horizontal light of duty--invaluable, but, ever accompanied by its own shadow of failure, (Location 202834)

For, with the loss of their presence, she began to know and prize the simplicities of human affection; from lack of love began to lift up her heart to Love himself, the father of all our loves. (Location 202859)

It was a fine frosty morning. Not a few yellow leaves were still hanging, and the sun was warm and bright. It was one of those days near the death of the year, that make us wonder why the heart of man should revive and feel strong, while nature is falling into her dreary trance. (Location 203017)

The putting forth of their strength and skill doubtless makes many men feel happy--so long as they are in health; but how when they come to feel that that health is nowise in their power? (Location 203026)

Something was done, she supposed, that ought to be done--something she had no inclination to dispute, no interest in questioning; a certain good power called God, required from people, in return for the gift of existence, the attention of going to church; therefore she went sometimes. (Location 203855)

It is the poor man that gives the rich man all the pull on him, by cherishing the same feelings as the rich man concerning riches, by fancying the rich man because of his riches the greater man, and longing to be rich like him. A man that can do things is greater than any man who only has things. True, a rich man can get mighty things done, but he does not do them. He may be much the greater for willing them to be done, but he is not the greater for the actual doing of them. (Location 205082)

Verily the God that knows how not to reveal himself, must also know how best to reveal himself! If there be a calling child, there must be an answering father! (Location 205234)

From so early an age had Richard been accustomed to despise a certain form he called God, which stood in the gallery of his imagination, carved at by the hands of successive generations of sculptors, some hard, some feeble, some clever, some stupid, all conventional and devoid of prophetic imagination, that his antagonism had long taken the shape of an angry hostility to the notion of any God whatever. (Location 205242)

One of the best services true man can do a neighbour, is to persuade him--I speak in a parable--to house his children for a while, that he may know what they are: the children of another may be the saving of his children and his whole house. (Location 205254)

It was not pleasant to Richard to imagine any one with rights over him. It may be that some persist in calling up the false idea of such a one hitherto presented to them, in order to avoid feeling obligation to believe in him. (Location 205261)

It is one thing to seem to know with the brain, quite another to know with the heart. (Location 205265)

Instead of blaming as a matter of course the person who does not believe in a God, we should think first whether his notional God is a God that ought, or a God that ought not to be believed (Location 205290)

In a word, feeling must have put itself into the shape that awakes feeling. (Location 205455)

Whatever was not to him definite--that is, was not by him formally conceivable, must not be put in the category of things to be believed; (Location 205469)

Happily, the choice whether we shall be influenced is not given us; happily, too, the choice whether we shall obey an influence is given us. (Location 205472)

"There you are back to the book you don't believe in! And because you don't believe in the book that makes people afraid, you insist there can be no such thing as the gladness my heart cries out for! If you want to make people happy, why don't you preach a good God instead of no God?" (Location 205889)

For the first time he vaguely felt that there might be troubles needing a hand which neither man nor woman could hold out. (Location 205960)

till by slow gradations the sky's gray idea unfolded to a brilliant conviction, and, lo, there was the morning, not to be controverted! (Location 205976)

No one, however strong he may feel his obligations, will ever be man enough to fulfill them except he be a Christian--that is, one who, like Christ, cares first for the will of the Father. (Location 206030)

So much is required that nothing more could be required. (Location 206032)

If he answer, "I can do it without Christianity anyway," I reply, "Do it; try to do it, and I know where the honest endeavour will bring you. Don't try to do it, and you are not man enough to be worth reasoning with." (Location 206033)

What evil can there be for which there is no help in another honest human soul! (Location 206230)

If such a man says, 'The question of a God is not interesting to me,' I believe him; (Location 206752)

The world would not perish if what is called the church did go to pieces; a truer church, for there might well be a truer, would arise out of her ruins. But let no one seek to destroy; let him that builds only take heed that he build with gold and silver and precious stones, not with wood and hay and stubble! (Location 206829)

She never sought to make one in the parish a churchman, but tried to make every one she had to do with a scholar of Christ, a child to his father in heaven. (Location 206839)

For heaven is the devil's hell, and the true are the devils of it. (Location 207351)

Certain attempts at what is called conversion, are but writhings of the passion of self-recommendation; gapings of the greed of power over others; swellings of the ambition to propagate one's own creed, and proselytize victoriously; hungerings to see self reflected in another convinced. (Location 207412)

Barbara was one who, so far as human eyes could see, had never required conversion. She had but to go on, recognize, and do. She turned to the light by a holy will as well as holy instinct. She needed much instruction, and might yet have fierce battles to fight, but to convert such as Barbara must be to turn them the wrong way; for the whole energy of her being was in the direction of what is right--that is, righteousness. (Location 207416)

Barbara was one who, so far as human eyes could see, had never required conversion. She had but to go on, recognize, and do. She turned to the light by a holy will as well as holy instinct. She needed much instruction, and might yet have fierce battles to fight, but to convert such as Barbara must be to turn them the wrong way; for the whole energy of her being was in the direction of what is right--that is, righteousness. (Location 207416)

For he taught her to know the eternal man who bore witness to his father in the face of his perverse children, to know that his heart was the heart of a child in truth and love, and the heart of a God in courage and patience; and Barbara became his slave for very love, his blessed child, the inheritor of his universe. (Location 207425)

From the whole swarm she was protected--shame that it should have to be said!--by pure lack of what is generally regarded as  a religious education , such being the mother of more tears and madness in humble souls, and more presumption in the proud and selfish, than perhaps any other influence out of whose darkness God brings light. (Location 207430)

Wingfold never sought to moderate her ardour for the good of her workman-friend; he only sought to strengthen her in the truth. (Location 207441)

Helen Wingfold was one of those happy women able to let their hands lie in their laps--he (Location 207443)

"Now, pray, Miss Wylder, don't try by argument to convince the young man of anything. That were no good, even if you succeeded. Opinion is all that can result from argument, and his opinion concerning God, even if you got it set right, would not be knowledge of God, and would be worth nothing; while, if a man knows God, his opinion is either right, or on the nearest way to be right. The notion in Richard's brain of the God he denies, is but another form of the Moloch of the Ammonites. There never was, and never could be such a God. He in whom I believe is the God that says, 'This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.' It is as if he said--'Look at that man: I am just such! No other likeness of me is a true likeness. Heed my son: heed nobody else. Know him and you know me, and then we are one for ever.' Talk to Richard of the God you love, the beautiful, the strong, the true, the patient, the forgiving, the loving; the one childlike, eternal power and Godhead, who would die himself and kill you rather than have you false and mean and selfish. Let him feel God through your enthusiasm for him. You can't prove to him that there is any God. A God that could be proved, would not be worth proving. Make his thoughts dwell on such a God as he must feel would be worth having. Wake the notion of a God such as will draw him to wish there were such a God. There are many religious people who will tell you there is no such God as I mean; but God will love you for believing that he is as good and true as you can think. (Location 207445)

There is something fearful in the thought that through the generations the body may go on perfecting, while the heart goes on degenerating; that, while the animal beauty is growing complete in the magic of proportion, the indescribable marvel that can even give charm to ugliness, is as steadily vanishing. (Location 207616)

I believe we are not going to stop, but are meant to go on and on for ever; and I believe the business of eternity is to bring grand hidden things out into the light; and with them will come of necessity many other things as well, even some, I daresay, that we count trifles.--But (Location 207845)

The truth of Richard's love appeared in this that he was more able now to see the other side of a thing, to start objection to his own idea from the side of one who thought differently. (Location 208191)

Nature herself seemed against it, for, lovely us she was, she did awful things! (Location 208214)

What if the difficulty lies in us! What if Nature is doing her best to reveal! What if God is working to make us know--if we would but let him--as fast as ever he can! (Location 208240)

When a man knows, then first he gets a glimpse of his ignorance as it vanishes. (Location 208243)

there is indeed such a God, doing his best for us in great difficulties, with enemies almost too much for him--the falsehood, namely, the unfilialness of his children, so many of whom will not be true, priding themselves on the good he has created in them, while they refuse to make it their own by obeying it when they are disinclined. (Location 208318)

From the first, things have been moving toward the worse; life has been growing more dreary; men are more miserable now than when they were savage: how can we tell that the world was not started at its best, to go down hill for ever and ever, with a God to urge its evil pace, for surely there is none to stop it! (Location 208329)

He would have had to encounter all the wrong notions of God, dropped on the highway of the universe, by the nations that went before in the march of humanity. He would have found it much harder to work out his salvation, to force his freedom from the false forms given to truth by interpreters of little faith, for they would have seemed born in him because loved into him. (Location 208887)

How little men think, alas, of the duty that lies in  tone (Location 208973)

When a man finds he is not what he thought, that be has been talking line things, and but imagining he belonged to their world, he is on the way to discover that he is not up to his duty in the smallest thing. (Location 208976)

he begins to know that he needs more than himself; that there is none good but God; that, if he can gain no help from the perfect source of his being, that being ought not to have been given him; and that, if he does not cry for help to the father of his spirit, the more pleasant existence is, the less he deserves it should continue. (Location 208978)

By actively willing the will of God, and doing what of it lies to his doing, the man takes the share offered him in his own making, in his own becoming. (Location 208986)

Filial obligation is a point upon which those parents lay the heaviest stress who have done the least to develop the relation between them and their children. (Location 210269)

He gave her strong hopeful things to read--and in the search after such was driven to remark how little of the hopeful there is in the English, or in any other language. The song of hope is indeed written in men's hearts, but few sing it. (Location 210419)

he held, not only that to teach is the best way to learn, but that the imperfect are the best teachers of the imperfect. (Location 211401)