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A Fairytale Is Not An Allegory. There May Be Allegory In It, But It Is Not An Allegory.

-George MacDonald

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A Fairytale Is Not

George MacDonald

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A Fairytale Is Not An Allegory. There May Be Allegory In It, But It Is Not An Allegory.

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It May Be An Infinitely Less Evil To Murder A Man Than To Refuse To Forgive Him. The Former May Be The Act Of A Moment Of Passion: The Latter Is The Heart’s Choice.

There Are Women Who Fly Their Falcons At Any Game, Little Birds And All.

Never Be Discouraged Because Good Things Get On So Slowly Here; And Never Fail Daily To Do That Good Which Lies Next To Your Hand.

And In Thy Own Sermon, Thou That The Sparrow Falls Dost Allow, It Shall Not Cause Me Any Alarm; For Neither So Comes The Bird To Harm, Seeing Our Father, Thou Hast Said, Is By The Sparrow's Dying Bed; Therefore It Is A Blessed Place, And The Sparrow In High Grace.

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.

The Miracles Of Jesus Were The Ordinary Works Of His Father, Wrought Small And Swift That We Might Take Them In.

To Love Righteousness Is To Make It Grow, Not To Avenge It. Throughout His Life On Earth, Jesus Resisted Every Impulse To Work More Rapidly For A Lower Good.

Many A Thief Is A Better Man Than Many A Clergyman, And Miles Nearer To The Gate Of The Kingdom.

All Love Will, One Day, Meet With Its Return. All True Love Will, One Day, Behold Its Own Image In The Eyes Of The Beloved, And Be Humbly Glad.

As To The Pure All Things Are Pure, So The Common Mind Sees Far More Vulgarity In Others Than The Mind Developed In Genuine Refinement.

As Many As Received Him, To Them Gave He Power To Become The Sons Of God.

We Die Daily. Happy Those Who Daily Come To Life As Well.

It Was Part Of War; Men Died, More Would Die, That Was Past, And What Mattered Now Was The Business In Hand; Those Who Lived Would Get On With It. Whatever Sorrow Was Felt, There Was No Point In Talking Or Brooding About It, Much Less In Making, For Form's Sake, A Parade Of It. Better And Healthier To Forget It, And Look To Tomorrow.the Celebrated British Stiff Upper Lip, The Resolve To Conceal Emotion Which Is Not Only Embarrassing And Useless, But Harmful, Is Just Plain Commons Sense

Only He Knew That To Be Left Alone Is Not Always To Be Forsaken.

All Those Evil Doctrines About God That Work Misery And Madness Have Their Origin In The Brains Of The Wise And Prudent, Not In The Hearts Of Children.

Division Has Done More To Hide Christ From The View Of Men Than All The Infidelity That Has Ever Been Spoken.

He (god) Can Be Revealed Only To The Child; Perfectly, To The Pure Child Only. All The Discipline Of The World Is To Make Men Children, That God May Be Revealed To Them.

The Direst Foe Of Courage Is The Fear Itself, Not The Object Of It; And The Man Who Can Overcome His Own Terror Is A Hero And More.

You Would Not Think Any Duty Small, If You Yourself Were Great.

They Will Pressure You Into Doing Things That May Be Unsafe, Use Your Good Judgment, And Remember, 'i Would Rather Be Laughed At, Than Cried For.'

I Don't Know How To Thank You.' Then I Will Tell You. There Is Only One Way I Care For. Do Better, And Grow Better, And Be Better.

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

Any Faith In Him, However Small, Is Better Than Any Belief About Him, However Great.

Why Are All Reflections Lovelier Than What We Call Reality? -- Not So Grand Or So Strong, It May Be, But Always Lovelier? Fair As Is The Gliding Sloop On The Shining Sea, The Wavering, Trembling, Unresting Sail Below Is Fairer Still...all Mirrors Are Magic Mirrors. The Commonest Room Is A Room In A Poem When I Turn To The Glass...there Must Be A Truth Involved In It, Though We May But In Part Lay Hold Of The Meaning.

For That Great Love Speaks In The Most Wretched And Dirty Hearts; Only The Tone Of Its Voice Depends On The Echoes Of The Place In Which It Sounds.

How Many People Would Like To Be Good, If Only They Might Be Good Without Taking Trouble About It! They Do Not Like Goodness Well Enough To Hunger And Thirst After It, Or To Sell All That They Have That They May Buy It; They Will Not Batter At The Gate Of The Kingdom Of Heaven; But They Look With Pleasure On This Or That Aerial Castle Of Righteousness, And Think It Would Be Rather Nice To Live In It.

The Whole Trouble Is That We Won't Let God Help Us.

But I Begin To Think The Chief Difficulty In Writing A Book Must Be To Keep Out What Does Not Belong To It.

And Her Life Will Perhaps Be The Richer, For Holding Now Within It The Memory Of What Came, But Could Not Stay.

I Tell You, There Are More Worlds, And More Doors To Them, Than You Will Think Of In Many Years!

To Be Trusted Is A Greater Compliment Than Being Loved.

There Are Thousands Willing To Do Great Things For One Willing To Do A Small Thing.

There Is No Inborn Longing That Shall Not Be Fulfilled. I Think That Is As Certain As The Forgiveness Of Sins.

There Are Things That Must Be Done In Faith, Else They Never Have Being.

You Will Be Dead So Long As You Refuse To Die.

The Trees Bathed Their Great Heads In The Waves Of The Morning, While Their Roots Were Planted Deep In Gloom; Save Where On The Borders Of The Sunshine Broke Against Their Stems, Or Swept In Long Streams Through Their Avenues, Washing With Brighter Hue All The Leaves Over Which It Flowed; Revealing The Rich Brown Of The Dacayed Leaves And Fallen Pine-cones, And The Delicate Greens Of The Long Grasses And Tiny Forests Of Moss That Covered The Channel Over Which It Passed In The Motionless Rivers Of Light.

A Voice Is In The Wind I Do Not Know A Meaning On The Face Of The High Hills Whose Utterance I Cannot Comprehend. A Something Is Behind Them: That Is God.

To Try Too Hard To Make People Good Is One Way To Make Them Worse. The Only Way To Make Them Good Is To Be Good, Remembering Well The Beam And The Mote.

On Good Friday Jesus Died But Rose Again At Eastertide.....lord, Teach Us To Understand That Your Son Died To Save Us Not From Suffering But From Ourselves, Not From Injustice...but From Being Unjust. He Died That We Might Live - But Live As He Lives, By Dying As He Died Who Died To Himself.

God Himself - His Thoughts, His Will, His Love, His Judgments Are Men's Home. To Think His Thoughts, To Choose His Will, To Judge His Judgments, And Thus To Know That He Is In Us, With Us, Is To Be At Home. And To Pass Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death Is The Way Home, But Only Thus, That As All Changes Have Hitherto Led Us Nearer To This Home, The Knowledge Of God, So This Greatest Of All Outward Changes - For It Is But An Outward Change - Will Surely Usher Us Into A Region Where There Will Be Fresh Possibilities Of Drawing Nigh In Heart, Soul, And Mind To The Father Of Us All.

It Matters Little Where A Man May Be At This Moment; The Point Is Whether He Is Growing.

When We Understand The Outside Of Things, We Think We Have Them. Yet The Lord Puts His Things In Subdefined, Suggestive Shapes, Yielding No Satisfactory Meaning To The Mere Intellect, But Unfolding Themselves To The Conscience And Heart.

I Saw Thee Ne'er Before; I See Thee Never More; But Love, And Help, And Pain, Beautiful One, Have Made Thee Mine, Till All My Years Are Done.

I Want To Help You Grow As Beautiful As God Meant You To Be When He Thought Of You First.

All That Is Not God Is Death.

You Can't Live On Amusement. It Is The Froth On Water - An Inch Deep And Then The Mud.

Seeing Is Not Believing - It Is Only Seeing.

To Be Kind Neither Hurts Nor Compromises.

The Greatest Forces Lie In The Region Of The Uncomprehended.

Right Gladly Would He Free Them From Their Misery, But He Knows Only One Way: He Will Teach Them To Be Like Himself, Meek And Lowly, Bearing With Gladness The Yoke Of His Father's Will. This In The One, The Only Right, The Only Possible Way Of Freeing Them From Their Sin, The Cause Of Their Unrest.

Those Christians Who Are Very Strict In Their Observances, Think A Good Deal More Of The Sabbath Than Of Man, A Great Deal More Of The Bible Than Of The Truth, And Ten Times More Of Their Creed Than Of The Will Of God. Of Course, If They Heard Anyone Utter Such Words As I Have Just Written, They Would Say He Was And Atheist.

Where Did You Come From, Baby Dear? Out Of The Everywhere And Into Here.

Anything Large Enough For A Wish To Light Upon, Is Large Enough To Hang A Prayer Upon.

When I Can No More Stir My Soul To Move, And Life Is But The Ashes Of A Fire; When I Can But Remember That My Heart Once Used To Live And Love, Long And Aspire- O, Be Thou Then The First, The One Thou Art; Be Thou The Calling, Before All Answering Love, And In Me Wake Hope, Fear, Boundless Desire.

In The Hearts Of Witches, Love And Hate Lie Close Together And Often Tumble Over Each Other.

Not Even Nothingness Preceded Life. Nothingness Owes Its Very Idea To Existence.

To Try To Be Brave Is To Be Brave.

I Repent Me Of The Ignorance Wherein I Ever Said That God Made Man Out Of Nothing: There Is No Nothing Out Of Which To Make Anything; God Is All In All, And He Made Us Out Of Himself.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together.

I Firmly Believe People Have Hitherto Been A Great Deal Too Much Taken Up About Doctrine And Far Too Little About Practice. The Word "doctrine," As Used In The Bible, Means Teaching Of Duty, Not Theory.

As You Grow Ready For It, Somewhere Or Other You Will Find What Is Needful For You In A Book.

But For Money And The Need Of It, There Would Not Be Half The Friendship In The World. It Is Powerful For Good If Divinely Used. Give It Plenty Of Air And It Is Sweet As The Hawthorn; Shut It Up And It Cankers And Breeds Worms.

Oh The Folly Of Any Mind That Would Explain God Before Obeying Him! That Would Map Out The Character Of God Instead Of Crying, Lord, What Wouldst Thou Have Me To Do?

We Are Dwellers In A Divine Universe Where No Desires Are In Vain - If Only They Be Large Enough.

Truth Is A Very Different Thing From Fact; It Is The Loving Contact Of The Soul With Spiritual Fact, Vital And Potent. It Does Not Work In The Soul Independently Of All Faculty Or Qualification There For Setting It Forth Or Defending It. Truth In The Inward Parts Is A Power, Not An Opinion.

Common People, Whether Lords Or Shop-keepers, Are Slow To Understand That Possession, Whether In The Shape Of Birth Or Lands Or Money Or Intellect, Is A Small Affair In The Difference Between Men.

Primarily, God Is Not Bound To Punish Sin; He Is Bound To Destroy Sin. The Only Vengeance Worth Having On Sin Is To Make The Sinner Himself Its Executioner.

The Part Of The Philanthropist Is Indeed A Dangerous One; And The Man Who Would Do His Neighbour Good Must First Study How Not To Do Him Evil, And Must Begin By Pulling The Beam Out Of His Own Eye.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

God Chooses That Men Should Be Tried, But Let A Man Beware Of Tempting His Neighbor.

The First Thing A Kindness Deserves Is Acceptance, The Second, Transmission.

All Is Loss That Comes Between Us And Christ.

No Man Has The Mind Of Christ, Except Him Who Makes It His Business To Obey Him.

Well, Perhaps; But I Begin To Think There Are Better Things Than Being Comfortable.

We Are And Remain Such Creeping Christians, Because We Look At Ourselves And Not At Christ; Because We Gaze At The Marks Of Our Own Soiled Feet, And The Trail Of Our Own Defiled Garments.... Each, Putting His Foot In The Footprint Of The Master, And So Defacing It, Turns To Examine How Far His Neighbor’s Footprint Corresponds With That Which He Still Calls The Master’s, Although It Is But His Own.

Friends, If We Be Honest With Ourselves, We Shall Be Honest With Each Other.

He (god) Loves What I Shall Be.

In Moments Of Doubt I Cry, ‘could God Himself Create Such Lovely Things As I Dreamed?’ ‘whence Then Came Thy Dream?’ Answers Hope.

The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Not Come Even When God's Will Is Our Law; It Is Fully Come When God's Will Is Our Will.

You Must Learn To Be Strong In The Dark As Well As In The Day, Else You Will Always Be Only Half Brave.

Forgiveness Is The Giving, And So The Receiving, Of Life.

Come, Then, Affliction, If My Father Wills, And Be My Frowning Friend. A Friend That Frowns Is Better Than A Smiling Enemy.

Books Are But Dead Bodies To You, And A Library Nothing But A Catacomb!

Difficulty Adds To Result, As The Ramming Of Powder Sends The Bullet The Further.

Doubts Are The Messengers Of The Living One To The Honest. They Are The First Knock At Our Door Of Things That Are Not Yet, But Have To Be, Understood. . . . Doubts Must Precede Every Deeper Assurance; For Uncertainties Are What We First See When We Look Into A Region Hitherto Unknown, Unexplored, Unannexed.

It Is A Happy Thing For Us That This Is Really All We Have To Concern Ourselves About--what To Do Next. No Man Can Do The Second Thing. He Can Do The First.

Why Should My Love Be Powerless To Help Another?

Timely Service, Like Timely Gifts, Is Doubled In Value.

The Seed Dies Into A New Life, And So Does Man.

All That Is Made Seems Planless To The Darkened Mind, Because There Are More Plans Than It Looked For...there Seems No Plan Because It Is All Plan: There Seems No Centre Because It Is All Centre.

It Is The Heart That Is Not Sure Of Its God That Is Afraid To Laugh In His Presence.

I Begin Indeed To Fear That I Have Undertaken An Impossibility, Undertaken To Tell What I Cannot Tell Because No Speech At My Command Will Fit The Forms In My Mind.

If We Knew As Much About Heaven As God Does, We Would Clap Our Hands Every Time A Christian Dies.

My Spirits Rose As I Went Deeper; Into The Forest; But I Could Not Regain My Former Elasticity Of Mind. I Found Cheerfulness To Be Like Life Itself - Not To Be Created By Any Argument. Afterwards I Learned, That The Best Way To Manage Some Kinds Of Pain Fill Thoughts, Is To Dare Them To Do Their Worst; To Let Them Lie And Gnaw At Your Heart Till They Are Tired; And You Find You Still Have A Residue Of Life They Cannot Kill. So, Better And Worse, I Went On, Till I Came To A Little Clearing In The Forest.

Anything Big Enough To Occupy Our Minds Is Big Enough To Hang A Prayer On.

Remember, Then, That Whoever Does Not Mean Good Is Always In Danger Of Harm. But I Try To Give Everybody Fair Play, And Those That Are In The Wrong Are In Far More Need Of It Always Than Those Who Are In The Right: They Can Afford To Do Without It.

You've Got To Save Your Own Soul First, And Then The Souls Of Your Neighbors If They Will Let You; And For That Reason You Must Cultivate, Not A Spirit Of Criticism, But The Talents That Attract People To The Hearing Of The Word.

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.

How Strange This Fear Of Death Is! We Are Never Frightened At A Sunset.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

It Is To The Man Who Is Trying To Live, To The Man Who Is Obedient To The Word Of The Master, That The Word Of The Master Unfolds Itself.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

Do Not Measure God's Mind By Your Own.

The Face Of The Son Of God, Who, Instead Of Accepting The Sacrifice Of One Of His Creatures To Satisfy His Justice Or Support His Dignity, Gave Himself Utterly Unto Them, And Therein To The Father By Doing His Lovely Will; Who Suffered Unto The Death, Not That Men Might Not Suffer, But That Their Suffering Might Be Like His, And Lead Them Up To His Perfection.

Man Finds It Hard To Get What He Wants, Because He Does Not Want The Best; God Finds It Hard To Give, Because He Would Give The Best, And Man Will Not Take It.

Yet I Know That Good Is Coming To Me—that Good Is Always Coming; Though Few Have At All Times The Simplicity And The Courage To Believe It. What We Call Evil, Is The Only And Best Shape, Which, For The Person And His Condition At The Time, Could Be Assumed By The Best Good. And So, Farewell.

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.

I Learned That He That Will Be A Hero Will Barely Be A Man; That He That Will Be Nothing But A Doer Of His Work Is Sure Of His Manhood.

Real Good-breeding Is Independent Of The Forms And Refinements Of What Has Assumed To Itself The Name Of Society.

All Haste Implies Weakness.

The Mind Of The Many Is Not The Mind Of God.

For The Bliss Of The Animals Lies In This, That, On Their Lower Level, They Shadow The Bliss Of Those--few At Any Moment On The Earth--who Do Not 'look Before And After, And Pine For What Is Not,' But Live In The Holy Carelessness Of The Eternal Now.

Truth Is Truth, Whether From The Lips Of Jesus Or Balaam.

Some Thinkers Would Feel Sorely Hampered If At Liberty To Use No Forms But Such As Existed In Nature, Or To Invent Nothing Save In Accordance With The Laws Of The World Of The Senses; But It Must Not Therefore Be Imagined That They Desire Escape From The Region Of Law.

A Man Is As Free As He Chooses To Make Himself, Never An Atom Freer.

...though I Cannot Promise To Take You Home," Said North Wind, As She Sank Nearer And Nearer To The Tops Of The Houses, "i Can Promise You It Will Be All Right In The End. You Will Get Home Somehow.

I've Been Thinking About It A Great Deal, And It Seems To Me That Although Any One Sixpence Is As Good As Any Other Sixpence, Not Twenty Lambs Would Do Instead Of One Sheep Whose Face You Knew. Somehow, When Once You've Looked Into Anybody's Eyes, Right Deep Down Into Them, I Mean, Nobody Will Do For That One Any More . Nobody, Ever So Beautiful Or So Good, Will Make Up For That One Going Out Of Sight.

Do You Think You Love Your Children Better Than He Who Made Them? Is Not Your Love What It Is Because He Put It Into Your Heart First? Have You Not Often Been Cross With Them? Sometimes Unjust To Them? Whence Came The Returning Love That Rose From Unknown Depths In Your Being, And Swept Away The Anger And The Injustice? You Did Not Create That Love. Probably You Were Not Good Enough To Send For It By Prayer. But It Came. God Sent It. He Makes You Love Your Children.

Faith Is Obedience, Not Compliance.

But Words Are Vain; Reject Them All— They Utter But A Feeble Part: Hear Thou The Depths From Which They Call, The Voiceless Longing Of My Heart.

It Is By Loving And Not By Being Loved That One Can Come Nearest To The Soul Of Another.

The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Fellow, Next To Rousing His Conscience, Is — Not To Give Him Things To Think About, But To Wake Things Up That Are In Him; Or Say, To Make Him Think Things For Himself.

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.

What Distressed Me Most - More Even Than My Own Folly - Was The Perplexing Question - How Can Beauty And Ugliness Dwell So Near? Even With Her Altered Complexion And Face Of Dislike; Disenchanted Of The Belief That Clung Around Her; Known For A Living, Walking Sepulcher, Faithless, Deluding, Traitorous; I Felt, Notwithstanding All This, That She Was Beautiful. Upon This I Pondered With Undiminished Perplexity.

God Never Gave Man A Thing To Do Concerning Which It Were Irreverent To Ponder How The Son Of God Would Have Done It.

I Find The Doing Of The Will Of God Leaves Me No Time For Disputing About His Plans — I Do Not Say For Thinking About Them.

I Learned That It Is Better, A Thousandfold , For A Proud Man To Fall And Be Humbled, Than To Hold Up His Head In His Pride And Fancied Innocence. I Learned That He That Will Be A Hero, Will Barely Be A Man; That He That Will Be Nothing But A Doer Of His Work, Is Sure Of His Manhood. In Nothing Was My Ideal Lowered, Or Dimmed, Or Grown Less Precious; I Only Saw It Too Plainly, To Set Myself For A Moment Beside It.

There Is No Cheating In Nature And The Simple Unsought Feelings Of The Soul. There Must Be A Truth Involved In It, Though We May But In Part Lay Hold Of The Meaning.

Alas, How Easily Things Go Wrong! A Sigh Too Much, A Kiss Too Long And There Follows A Mist And A Weeping Rain And Life Is Never The Same Again

One Who Not Merely Beholds The Outward Shows Of Things, But Catches A Glimpse Of The Soul That Looks Out Of Them, Whose Garment And Revelation They Are-if He Be Such, I Say, He Will Stand, For More Than A Moment, Speechless With Something Akin To That Which Made The Morning Stars Sing Together.

To Have What We Want Is Riches; But To Be Able To Do Without Is Power.

The Love Of Our Neighbor Is The Only Door Out Of The Dungeon Of Self.

God Himself - His Thoughts, His Will, His Love, His Judgments Are Men's Home. To Think His Thoughts, To Choose His Will, To Judge His Judgments, And Thus To Know That He Is In Us, With Us, Is To Be At Home.

Faith Is That Which, Knowing The Lord's Will, Goes And Does It; Or, Not Knowing It, Stands And Waits, Content In Ignorance As In Knowledge, Because God Wills - Neither Pressing Into The Hidden Future, Nor Careless Of The Knowledge Which Opens The Path Of Action

Heaven...a Place Where Everything That Is Not Music Is Silence.

What Honest Boy Would Pride Himself On Not Picking Pockets ? A Thief Who Was Trying To Reform Would. To Be Conceited Of Doing One's Duty Is Then A Sign Of How Little One Does It, And How Little One Sees What A Contemptible Thing It Is Not To Do It. Could Any But A Low Creature Be Conceited Of Not Being Contemptible? Until Our Duty Becomes To Us Common As Breathing, We Are Poor Creatures.

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.

What A Man Is Lies As Certainly Upon His Countenance As In His Heart, Though None Of His Acquaintances May Be Able To Read It. The Very Intercourse With Him May Have Rendered It More Difficult.

I Am Sometimes Almost Terrified At The Scope Of The Demands Made Upon Me, At The Perfection Of The Self-abandonment Required Of Me; Yet Outside Of Such Absoluteness Can Be No Salvation.

Then The Old Man Of The Earth Stooped Over The Floor Of The Cave, Raised A Huge Stone From It, And Left It Leaning. It Disclosed A Great Hole That Went Plumb-down. "that Is The Way," He Said. "but There Are No Stairs." "you Must Throw Yourself In. There Is No Other Way.

I Wondered Over Again For The Hundredth Time What Could Be The Principle Which, In The Wildest, Most Lawless, Fantastically Chaotic, Apparently Capricious Work Of Nature, Always Kept It Beautiful.

...it Is So Silly Of People To Fancy That Old Age Means Crookedness And Witheredness And Feebleness And Sticks And Spectacles And Rheumatism And Forgetfulness! It Is So Silly! Old Age Has Nothing Whatever To Do With All That. The Right Old Age Means Strength And Beauty And Mirth And Courage And Clear Eyes And Strong Painless Limbs.

All Things Are Possible With God, But All Things Are Not Easy.

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

And So All Growth That Is Not Towards God Is Growing To Decay.

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.

It Is Not The High Summer Alone That Is God's. The Winter Also Is His. And Into His Winter He Came To Visit Us. And All Man's Winters Are His - The Winter Of Our Poverty, The Winter Of Our Sorrow, The Winter Of Our Unhappiness - Even 'the Winter Of Our Discontent.

Thou Art Beautiful Because God Created Thee, But Thou Art A Slave To Sin... Wickedness Has Made You Ugly.

For When Is The Child The Ideal Child In Our Eyes And To Our Hearts? Is It Not When With Gentle Hand He Takes His Father By The Beard, And Turns That Father's Face Up To His Brothers And Sisters To Kiss? When Even The Lovely Selfishness Of Love-seeking Has Vanished, And The Heart Is Absorbed In Loving?

There Is No Harm In Being Afraid. The Only Harm Is In Doing What Fear Tells You. Fear Is Not Your Master! Laugh In His Face And He Will Run Away.

God Hides Nothing. His Very Work From The Beginning Is Revelation--a Casting Aside Of Veil After Veil, A Showing Unto Men Of Truth After Truth. On And On From Fact Divine He Advances, Until At Length In His Son Jesus He Unveils His Very Face.

Whose Work Is It But Your Own To Open Your Eyes? But Indeed The Business Of The Universe Is To Make Such A Fool Out Of You That You Will Know Yourself For One, And Begin To Be Wise.

Never Tell A Child 'you Have A Soul.' Teach Him, You Are A Soul; You Have A Body.

Life And Religion Are One, Or Neither Is Any Thing.

In Low Theologies, Hell Is Invariably The Deepest Truth, And The Love Of God Is Not So Deep As Hell.

Trust To God To Weave Your Thread Into The Great Web, Though The Pattern Shows It Not Yet.

It Is Only By Loving A Thing That You Can Make It Yours.

I Dare Not Say With Paul That I Am The Slave Of Christ, But My Highest Aspiration And Desire Is To Be The Slave Of Christ.

If There Be Music In My Reader, I Would Gladly Wake It.

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

God Is Nearer To You Than Any Thought Or Feeling Of Yours... Do Not Be Afraid.

He May Delay Because It Would Not Be Safe To Give Us At Once What We Ask: We Are Not Ready For It. To Give Ere We Could Truly Receive, Would Be To Destroy The Very Heart And Hope Of Prayer, To Cease To Be Our Father. The Delay Itself May Work To Bring Us Nearer To Our Help, To Increase The Desire, Perfect The Prayer, And Ripen The Receptive Condition.

Above All Things, I Delight In Listening To Stories, And Sometimes In Telling Them.

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 Truly Wise Talk Little About Religion And Are Not Given To Taking Sides On Doctrinal Issues. When They Hear People Advocating Or Opposing The Claims Of This Or That Party In The Church, They Turn Away With A Smile Such As Men Yield To The Talk Of Children. They Have No Time, They Would Say, For That Kind Of Thing. They Have Enough To Do In Trying To Faithfully Practice What Is Beyond Dispute.

Many A Life Has Been Injured By The Constant Expectation Of Death. It Is Life We Have To Do With, Not Death. The Best Preparation For The Night Is To Work Diligently While The Day Lasts. The Best Preparation For Death Is Life.

To Receive Honestly Is The Best Thanks For A Good Thing.

A Condition Which Of Declension Would Indicate A Devil, May Of Growth Indicate A Saint.

But We Believe – Nay, Lord We Only Hope, That One Day We Shall Thank Thee Perfectly For Pain And Hope And All That Led Or Drove Us Back Into The Bosom Of Thy Love.

In Whatever Man Does Without God, He Must Fail Miserably, Or Succeed More Miserably.

Work Is Not Always Required. There Is Such A Thing As Sacred Idleness.

Meditation Practice

As No Scripture Is Of Private Interpretation, So Is There No Feeling In A Human Heart Which Exists In That Heart Alone - Which Is Not, In Some Form Or Degree, In Every Human Heart.

The Ideal Is The Only Absolute Real; And It Must Become The Real In The Individual Life As Well, However Impossible They May Count It Who Never Tried It.

What Distressed Me Most - More Even Than My Own Folly - Was The Perplexing Question, How Can Beauty And Ugliness Dwell So Near?

By All Means Rid Yourself Of An Impoverished Faith.

We Are All Very Anxious To Be Understood, And It Is Very Hard Not To Be. But There Is One Thing Much More Necessary.' What Is That, Grandmother?' To Understand Other People.' Yes, Grandmother. I Must Be Fair - For If I'm Not Fair To Other People, I'm Not Worth Being Understood Myself. I See.

A Man Is In Bondage To Whatever He Cannot Part With That Is Less Than Himself.

Where Did You Get Your Eyes So Blue? Out Of The Sky As I Came Through.

No Man Can Make Haste To Be Rich Without Going Against The Will Of God, In Which Case It Is The One Frightful Thing To Be Successful.

Somehow, I Can't Say How, It Tells Me That All Is Right; That It Is Coming To Swallow Up All Cries.

I Only Know When I Don't Know A Thing. My Uncle Has Taught Me That Wisdom Lies In That.

To Free A Man From Suffering, He Must Be Set Right, Put In Health; And The Health At The Root Of Man's Being, His Rightness, Is To Be Free From Wrongness, That Is, From Sin. A Man Is Right When There Is No Wrong In Him. I Do Not Mean Set Free From The Sins He Has Done: That Will Follow; I Mean The Sins He Is Doing, Or Is Capable Of Doing; The Sins In His Being Which Spoil His Nature — The Wrongness In Him — The Evil He Consents To; The Sin He Is, Which Makes Him Do The Sin He Does.

I Write, Not For Children,but For The Child-like, Whether They Be Of Five, Or Fifty, Or Seventy-five.

There Is An Aching That Is Worse Than Any Pain.

In Joy Or Sorrow, Feebleness Or Might, Peace Or Commotion, Be Thou, Father, My Delight.

Man's Rank Is His Power To Uplift.

Now And Then, When I Look Round On My Books, They Seem To Waver As If A Wind Rippled Their Solid Mass, And Another World Were About To Break Through.

Her Face Was Fair And Pretty, With Eyes Like Two Bits Of Night Sky, Each With A Star Dissolved In The Blue.

Afflictions Are But The Shadows Of God's Wings.

Every Soul Has A Landscape That Changes With The Wind That Sweeps The Sky, With The Clouds That Return After Its Rain.

I Am So Tried By The Things Said About God. I Understand God's Patience With The Wicked, But I Do Wonder How He Can Be So Patient With The Pious!

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together. Nature Thought Beauty Too Rich To Go Forth Upon The Earth Without A Meet Alloy.

The Lord Never Came To Deliver Men From The Consequences Of Their Sins While Yet Those Sins Remained...yet Men, Loving Their Sins And Feeling Nothing Of Their Dread Hatefulness, Have, Consistent With Their Low Condition, Constantly Taken This Word Concerning The Lord To Mean That He Came To Save Them From The Punishment Of Their Sins.

Love Me, Beloved; Hades And Death Shall Vanish Away Like A Frosty Breath; These Hands, That Now Are At Home In Thine, Shall Clasp Thee Again, If Thou Art Still Mine; And Thou Shalt Be Mine, My Spirit's Bride, In The Ceaseless Flow Of Eternity's Tide, If The Truest Love Thy Heart Can Know Meet The Truest Love That From Mine Can Flow. Pray God, Beloved, For Thee And Me, That Our Sourls May Be Wedded Eternally.

Nothing Makes One Feel So Strong As A Call For Help.

Attitudes Are More Important Than Facts.

My Prayers, My God, Flow From What I Am Not; I Think Thy Answers Make Me What I Am.

Each Is But A Means To An End; In The Perfected End We Find The Intent, And There God — Not In The Laws Themselves, Except As His Means Of Revealing Himself. For That Same Reason, Human Science Cannot Discover God. For Human Science Is But The Backward Undoing Of The Tapestry-web Of God's Science, It Works With Its Back To Him, And Is Always Leaving Him — His Intent.

Obedience Is The Key To Every Door.

Oh, I Believe That There Is No Away; That No Love, No Life, Goes Ever From Us; It Goes As He Went, That It May Come Again, Deeper And Closer And Surer, And Be With Us Always, Even To The End Of The World.

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Michael Crichton

Dag Hammarskjold

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