Ada Lawrence > Ada's Quotes

“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

“It is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, that originates and perfects and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over over any soul be loved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. ”
― George MacDonald, Phantastes

“Doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.”
― George MacDonald

“Come, then, affliction, if my Father wills, and be my frowning friend. A friend that frowns is better than a smiling enemy. ”
― George MacDonald

“No story ever really ends, and I think I know why. ”
― George MacDonald

“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.”
― George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

“Philosophy is really homesickness.”
― George MacDonald

“Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.”
― George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

“You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.”
― George MacDonald, The Day Boy and the Night Girl

“It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.”
― George MacDonald

“If we will but let our God and Father work His will with us, there can be no limit to His enlargement of our existence”
― George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

“The world...is full of resurrections... Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it - the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.”
― George MacDonald, The Seaboard Parish

“Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind