783 Quotes by George MacDonald

I do believe that when a man confesses to his neighbor and says he's sorry, he thinks more of him than he did before. You see, we all know we have done wrong, but we haven't usually confessed it. And it's a funny thing, but when the time comes when there's something he needs to repent of himself, he hesitates for fear of the shame of having to confess it. To me the shame lies in not confessing after you know you're in the wrong.

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.

You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.

The boy should enclose and keep, as his life, the old child at the heart of him, and never let it go. He must still, to be a right man, be his mother's darling, and more, his father's pride, and more. The child is not meant to die, but to be forever fresh born.

He has wronged me grievously. It is a dreadful thing to me, and more dreadful still to him, that he should have done it. He has hurt me, but he has nearly killed himself.

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.

For others, as for ourselves, we must trust him. If we could thoroughly understand anything, that would be enough to prove it undivine; and that which is but one step beyond our understanding must be in some of its relations as mysterious as if it were a hundred.

the truth she gathered, enlarging her strength, enlarged likewise the composure that comes of strength.

I never heard of her loving anybody but herself, and I do not think she could have managed that if she had not somehow got used to herself.