I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.
If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour but the ministering genius of our destruction.
Seeing is not believing, it is only seeing,”George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin
But we believe – nay, Lord we only hope,That one day we shall thank thee perfectlyFor pain and hope and all that led or droveUs back into the bosom of thy love.
You have tasted of death now,” said the old man. “Is it good?” “It is good,” said Mossy. “It is better than life.”“No,” said the old man: “it is only more life.
I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.
There is little hope of the repentance and redemption of certain some until they have committed one or another of the many wrong things of which they are daily, through a course of unrestrained selfishness, becoming more and more capable.
his mother, who had never been able to manage him, sent him to school to get rid of him, lamented his absence till he returned, then writhed and fretted under his presence until again he went.
As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.
The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies.
Some dreams, some poems, some musical phrases, some pictures, wake feelings such as one never had before, new in colour and form—spiritual sensations, as it were, hitherto unproved
A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer.
There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end
Her heart – like every heart, if only its fallen sides were cleared away – was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved everything she saw.
When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when it was gone they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, they felt as if it had never gone.
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.
the truth she gathered, enlarging her strength, enlarged likewise the composure that comes of strength.
That’s all nonsense,” said Curdie. “I don’t know what you mean.” “Then if you don’t know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?
All words, then, belonging to the inner world of the mind, are of the imagination, are originally poetic words.
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!
Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.
Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly.
There had been a time in Godfrey’s life when, had she stood before him in all her splendor, he would have turned from her, because of her history, with a sad disgust. Was he less pure now? He was more pure, for he was humbler.
Indeed, a man is rather being thought than thinking, when a new thought arises in his mind.
If we speak of direct means for the culture of the imagination, the whole is comprised in two words–food and exercise.
How kind you are, North Wind!”I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it.
Our Lord speaks of many coming up to His door confident of admission, whom He yet sends away. Faith is obedience, not confidence.
Alas, how easily things go wrong!A sigh too much, a kiss too longAnd there follows a mist and a weeping rainAnd life is never the same again
The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.
It may seem strange that one with whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed my thoughts, but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others.
There is hardly a limit to the knowledge and sympathy a man may have in respect of the finest things, and yet be a fool. Sympathy is not harmony. A man may be a poet even, and speak with the tongue of an angel, and yet be a very bad fool.
…as no one can be just without love, so no one can truly report without understanding.
Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful than even _to do_. Action _may_ be hypocrisy, but being is the thing itself, and is the parent of action.
The main secret of his progress, the secret of all wisdom, was, that with him action was the beginning and end of thought.
There can hardly be a plainer proof of the lowness of our nature, until we have laid hold of the higher nature that belongs to us by birthright, than this, that even a just anger tends to make us unjust and unkind.
There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end.
…he believed in God and he believed that when the human is still, the Divine speaks to it, because it is its own.
Ignorance is no reason with a fool for holding his tongue.
To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lie against God; to say that it is therefore right, is to lie against the very spirit of God.
The person who can not bear with a sick man or a baby is not fit to be a woman.
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.
She did not even trouble herself much to show Godfrey her gratitude. We may spoil gratitude as we offer it, by insisting on its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.
Oblige me by telling me where I am.””That is impossible. You know nothing about whereness. The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home.
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.
Work done is of more consequence for the future than the foresight of an angel.
The well-meaning woman was in fact possessed by two devils–the one the stiff-necked devil of pride, the other the condescending devil of benevolence. She was kind, but she must have credit for it
No good ever comes of pride, for it is the meanest of mean things, and no one but he who is full of it thinks it grand.
punishment had not been spared–with best results in patience and purification
How much time is wasted in what is called thought, but is merely care–an anxious idling over the fancied probabilities of result
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.
The church grew very lonely about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken it. Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.
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.
It is not where one is, but in what direction he is going.
Never, my little one, hide anything from those that love you. Never let anything that makes itself a nest in your heart, grow into a secret, for then at once it will begin to eat a hole in it.
From the neglect of a real duty, she became the slave of a false one.
She who is even once unjust can not complain if the like is expected of her again.
It is not the hysterical alone for whom the great dash of cold water is good.All who dream life, instead of living it,require some similar shock.
It is the heart that is unsure of its God that is afraid to laugh.
It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.
How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
To have what we want is riches but to be able to do without is power.
When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.
Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, and the last duty done.