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"but If God Is So Good As You Represent Him, And If He Knows All That We Need, And Better Far Than We Do Ourselves, Why Should It Be Necessary To Ask Him For Anything?" I Answer, "what If He Knows Prayer To Be The Thing We Need First And Most? What If The Main Object In God's Idea Of Prayer Be The Supplying Of Our Great, Our Endless Need - The Need Of Himself?"

-George MacDonald

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"but If God Is

George MacDonald

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"but If God Is So Good As You Represent Him, And If He Knows All That We Need, And Better Far Than We Do Ourselves, Why Should It Be Necessary To Ask Him For Anything?" I Answer, "what If He Knows Prayer To Be The Thing We Need First And Most? What If The Main Object In God's Idea Of Prayer Be The Supplying Of Our Great, Our Endless Need - The Need Of Himself?"

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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.

No; But You Came, And Found The Riddles Waiting For You! Indeed You Are Yourself The Only Riddle. What You Call Riddles Are Truths, And Seem Riddles Because You Are Not True.

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.

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.

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.

Why Should My Love Be Powerless To Help Another?

In The Midst Of Death We Are In Life. Life Is The Only Reality; What Men Call Death Is But A Shadow.

What A Good Thing, For Instance, It Was That One Princess Should Sleep For A Hundred Years! Was She Not Saved From All The Plague Of Young Men Who Were Not Worthy Of Her? And Did Not She Come Awake Exactly At The Right Moment When The Right Prince Kissed Her? For My Part, I Cannot Help Wishing A Good Many Girls Would Sleep Till Just The Same Fate Overtook Them. It Would Be Happier For Them, And More Agreeable To Their Friends.

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

To Give Truth To Him Who Loves It Not Is But To Give Him More Plentiful Material For Misinterpretation.

Misinterpretation

Seeing Is Not Believing - It Is Only Seeing.

One Of The Good Things That Come Of A True Marriage Is, That There Is One Face On Which Changes Come Without Your Seeing Them; Or Rather There Is One Face Which You Can Still See The Same, Through All The Shadows Which Years Have Gathered Upon It.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Alas! How Easily Things Go Wrong!

But It Is Not The Rich Man Only Who Is Under The Dominion Of Things; They Too Are Slaves Who, Having No Money, Are Unhappy From The Lack Of It.

I Do Not Myself Believe There Is Any Misfortune. What Men Call Such Is Merely The Shadowside Of A Good.

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

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

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

All That Is Not God Is Death.

If It Were Not For The Outside World, We Would Have No Inside World To Understand Things By. Least Of All Could We Understand God Without These Millions Of Sights And Sounds And Scents And Motions, Weaving Their Endless Harmonies. They Come Out Of His Heart To Let Us Know A Little Of What Is In It.

It Is Not The Cares Of Today, But The Cares Of Tomorrow, That Weigh A Man Down. For The Needs Of Today We Have Corresponding Strength Given. For The Morrow We Are Told To Trust. It Is Not Ours Yet. It Is When Tomorrow's Burden Is Added To The Burden Of Today That The Weight Is More Than A Man Can Bear.

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.

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.

If You Care To See God, Be Pure. If You Will Not Be Pure, You Will Grow More And More Impure.

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.

I Rose As From The Death That Wipes Out The Sadness Of Life, And Then Dies Itself In The New Morrow.

We Must Do The Thing We Must Before The Thing We May; We Are Unfit For Any Trust Till We Can And Do Obey.

It May Be Infinitely Worse To Refuse To Forgive Than To Murder, Because

God Will Not Take Shelter Behind A Jugglery Of Logic Or Metaphysics. He Is Neither A Schoolman Nor Theologian, But Our Father In Heaven.

Blessed Be The True Life That The Pauses Between Its Throbs Are Not Death!

He (god) Loves What I Shall Be.

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

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

No Man Ever Sank Under The Burden Of The Day. It Is When Tomorrow's Burden Is Added To The Burden Of Today That The Weight Is More Than A Man Can Bear.

Burdens Of Life

God Left The World Unfinished For Man To Work His Skill Upon. He Left The Electricity Still In The Cloud, The Oil Still In The Earth.

Unfinished Work

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

Forgiveness Unleashes Joy. It Brings Peace. It Washes The Slate Clean. It Sets All The Highest Values Of Love In Motion.

I Know My Easts And Tom Brown, You See, And They're Never Happy Unless Their Morality Is Being Tried In The Furnace And They Can Feel They Are Doing The Right Christian Thing And Never Mind The Consequences To Anyone Else.

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?

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.

Afflictions Are But The Shadows Of God's Wings.

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

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

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

We Profess To Think Jesus The Grandest And Most Glorious Of Men, Yet Hardly Care To Be Like Him. When We Are Offered His Spirit, That Is, His Very Nature Within Us, For The Asking, We Will Hardly Take The Trouble To Ask For It.

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.

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

Annihilation Itself Is No Death To Evil. Only Good Where Evil Was, Is Evil Dead. An Evil Thing Must Live With Its Evil Until It Chooses To Be Good. That Alone Is The Slaying Of Evil.

Forgiveness Is The Giving And So The Receiving Of Life. The Latter May Be An Impulse Of A Moment Of Heat; Whereas The Former Is A Cold And Deliberate Choice Of The Heart.

Joy Cannot Unfold The Deepest Truths. Cometh White-robed Sorrow, Stooping And Wan, And Flingeth Wide The Door She Must Not Enter.

But There Are Victories Far Worse Than Defeats; And To Overcome An Angel Too Gentle To Put Out All His Strength, And Ride Away In Triumph On The Back Of A Devil, Is One Of The Poorest.

To Try To Be Brave Is To Be Brave.

The Purposes Of God Point To One Simple End-that We Should Be As He Is, Think The Same Thoughts, Mean The Same Things, Possess The Same Blessedness.

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

We Have To Do With God, To Whom No One Can Look Without The Need Of Being Good Waking Up In His Heart; To Think About God Is To Begin To Be Good.

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

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

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.

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

The First Thing In All Progress Is To Leave Something Behind.

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.

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

I Believe That No Hell Will Be Lacking Which Would Help The Just Mercy Of God To Redeem His Children.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

"but If God Is So Good As You Represent Him, And If He Knows All That We Need, And Better Far Than We Do Ourselves, Why Should It Be Necessary To Ask Him For Anything?" I Answer, "what If He Knows Prayer To Be The Thing We Need First And Most? What If The Main Object In God's Idea Of Prayer Be The Supplying Of Our Great, Our Endless Need - The Need Of Himself?"

Which Of Us Is Other Than A Secret To All But God!

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.

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

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

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.

If Both Church And Fairy-tale Belong To Humanity, They May Occasionally Cross Circles, Without Injury To Either.

No One Is Likely To Remember What Is Entirely Uninteresting To Him.

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.

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.

Free Will Is Not The Liberty To Do Whatever One Likes, But The Power Of Doing Whatever One Sees Ought To Be Done, Even In The Very Face Of Otherwise Overwhelming Impulse. There Lies Freedom, Indeed.

One Thing Is Clear To Me, That No Indulgence Of Passion Destroys The Spiritual Nature So Much As Respectable Selfishness.

There Is No Water In Oxygen, No Water In Hydrogen: It Comes Bubbling Fresh From The Imagination Of The Living God, Rushing From Under The Great White Throne Of The Glacier. The Very Thought Of It Makes One Gasp With An Elemental Joy No Metaphysician Can Analyse.

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

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

By All Means Rid Yourself Of An Impoverished Faith.

To The Dim And Bewildered Vision Of Humanity, God's Care Is More Evident In Some Instances Than In Others; And Upon Such Instances Men Seize, And Call Them Providences. It Is Well That They Can; But It Would Be Gloriously Better If They Could Believe That The Whole Matter Is One Grand Providence.

No, There Is No Escape. There Is No Heaven With A Little Of Hell In It--no Plan To Retain This Or That Of The Devil In Our Hearts Or Our Pockets. Out Satan Must Go, Every Hair And Feather!

Until A Man Has Love, It Is Well He Should Have Fear. So Long As There Are Wild Beasts About, It Is Better To Be Afraid Than Secure.

For This, Deep Waters Whelm The Fruitful Lea, Wars Ravage, Famine Wastes, Plague Withers, Nor Shall Cease Till Men Have Chosen The Better Part.

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.

The More I Work With The Body, Keeping My Assumptions In A Temporary State Of Reservation, The More I Appreciate And Sympathize With A Given Disease. The Body No Longer Appears As A Sick Or Irrational Demon, But As A Process With Its Own Inner Logic And Wisdom.

It's Right To Trust In God; But, If You Don't Stand To Your Halliards Your Craft'll Miss Stays, And Your Faith'll Be Blown Out Of The Bolt-ropes In The Turn Of A Marlinspike.

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.

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

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

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.

To Be Trusted Is A Greater Compliment Than Being Loved.

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.

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

Alas! This Time Is Never The Time For Self-denial, It Is Always The Next Time. Abstinence Is So Much More Pleasant To Contemplate Upon The Other Side Of Indulgence.

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.

A Baby Sermon- The Lighting And Thunder, They Go And They Come: But The Stars And The Stillness Are Always At Home

Do Not Measure God's Mind By Your Own.

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.

There Is An Aching That Is Worse Than Any Pain.

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.

You Thought You Were Going To Be Made Into A Decent Little Cottage: But He Is Building A Palace. He Intends To Come And Live In It Himself. (quoted By C.s.lewis In Mere Christianity)

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

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.

A Perfect Faith Would Lift Us Absolutely Above Fear

A Man Must Learn To Love His Children, Not Because They Are His, But Because They Are Children, Else His Love Will Be Scarcely A Better Thing At Last Than The Party-spirit Of The Faithful Politician.

I Am Perplexed At The Stupidity Of The Ordinary Religious Being. In The Most Practical Of All Matters He Will Talk And Speculate And Try To Feel, But He Will Not Set Himself To Do.

It Is Not The Cares Of Today, But The Cares Of Tomorrow, That Weigh A Man Down.

Light-leaved Acacias, By The Door, Stood Up In Balmy Air, Clusters Of Blossomed Moonlight Bore, And Breathed A Perfume Rare.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

There Is This Difference Between The Growth Of Some Human Beings And That Of Others: In The One Case It Is A Continuous Dying, In The Other A Continuous Resurrection.

Faith Is Obedience, Not Compliance.

God's Finger Can Touch Nothing But To Mold It Into Loveliness.

Her Heart - Like Every Heart, If Only Its Fallen Sides Were Cleared Away - Was An Inexhaustible Fountain Of Love: She Loved Everything She Saw.

I Came From God, And I'm Going Back To God, And I Won't Have Any Gaps Of Death In The Middle Of My Life.

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.

Man's Rank Is His Power To Uplift.

...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.

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.

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.

Only Because Uplifted In Song, Was I Able To Endure The Blaze Of The Dawn.

This Is A Wise, Sane Christian Faith: That A Man Commit Himself, His Life, And His Hopes To God; That God Undertakes The Special Protection Of That Man; That Therefore That Man Ought Not To Be Afraid Of Anything.

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

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.

Those Are Not The Tears Of Repentance!... Self-loathing Is Not Sorrow. Yet It Is Good, For It Marks A Step In The Way Home, And In The Father's Arms The Prodigal Forgets The Self He Abominates.

I Watched Her Departure, As One Watches A Sunset. She Went Like A Radiance Through The Dark Wood, Which Was Henceforth Bright To Me, From Simply Knowing That Such A Creature Was In It.

To Be Kind Neither Hurts Nor Compromises.

When I Look Like This Into The Blue Sky, It Seems So Deep, So Peaceful, So Full Of A Mysterious Tenderness, That I Could Lie For Centuries And Wait For The Dawning Of The Face Of God Out Of The Awe-inspiring Loving-kindness.

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.

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

In Very Truth, A Wise Imagination, Which Is The Presence Of The Spirit Of God, Is The Best Guide That Man Or Woman Can Have; For It Is Not The Things We See The Most Clearly That Influence Us The Most Powerfully; Undefined, Yet Vivid Visions Of Something Beyond, Something Which Eye Has Not Seen Nor Ear Heard, Have Far More Influence Than Any Logical Sequences Whereby The Same Things May Be Demonstrated To The Intellect. It Is The Nature Of The Thing, Not The Clearness Of Its Outline, That Determines Its Operation. We Live By Faith, And Not By Sight.

Let Me, If I May, Be Ever Welcomed To My Room In Winter By A Glowing Hearth, In Summer By A Vase Of Flowers. If I May Not, Let Me Think How Nice They Would Be And Bury Myself In My Work. I Do Not Think That The Road To Contentment Lies In Despising What We Have Not Got. Let Us Acknowledge All Good, All Delight That The Worlds Holds, And Be Content Without It.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

Attitudes Are More Important Than Facts.

But More Impressive Than The Facts And Figures As To Height, Width, Age, Etc., Are The Entrancing Beauty And Tranquility That Pervade The Forest, The Feelings Of Peace, Awe And Reverence That It Inspires.

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.

You Doubt Because You Love Truth.

Half Of The Misery In The World Comes From Trying To Look, Instead Of Trying To Be, What One Is Not.

It Has Been Well Said That No Man Ever Sank Under The Burden Of The Day. It Is, When Tomorrow's Burden Is Added To The Burden Of Today, That The Weight Is More Than A Man Can Bear. Never Load Yourselves So, My Friends. If You Find Yourselves So Loaded, At Least Remember This: It Is Your Own Doing, Not God's. He Begs You To Leave The Future To Him, And Mind The Present.

It Is Our Best Work That God Wants, Not The Dregs Of Our Exhaustion. I Think He Must Prefer Quality To Quantity.

Quality Not Quantity

A Man's Real Belief Is That Which He Lives By. What A Man Believes Is The Thing He Does, Not The Thing He Thinks.

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.

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

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.

Love Makes Everything Lovely; Hate Concentrates Itself On The One Thing Hated.

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.

[god Desires] Not That He May Say To Them, "look How Mighty I Am, And Go Down Upon Your Knees And Worship," For Power Alone Was Never Yet Worthy Of Prayer; But That He May Say Thus: "look, My Children, You Will Never Be Strong But With My Strength. I Have No Other To Give You. And That You Can Get Only By Trusting In Me. I Can Not Give It You Any Other Way. There Is No Other Way."

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

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

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

All Haste Implies Weakness.

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.

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

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.

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

This Is And Has Been The Father's Work From The Beginning-to Bring Us Into The Home Of His Heart.

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.

He Who Seeks The Father More Than Anything He Can Give, Is Likely To Have What He Asks, For He Is Not Likely To Ask Amiss.

Moderation Is The Basis Of Justice.

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

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

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

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

Religion Is Life Essential.

But There Is A Light That Goes Deeper Than The Will, A Light That Lights Up The Darkness Behind It: That Light Can Change Your Will, Can Make It Truly Yours And Not Another's - Not The Shadow's. Into The Created Can Pour Itself The Creating Will, And So Redeem It!

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.

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

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.

But When We Are Following The Light, Even Its Extinction Is A Guide.

The Whole History Of The Christian Life Is A Series Of Resurrections. . . . Every Time We Find Our Hearts Are Troubled, That We Are Not Rejoicing In God, A Resurrection Must Follow; A Resurrection Out Of The Night Of Troubled Thought Into The Gladness Of The Truth.

Diamond, However, Had Not Been Out So Late Before In All His Life, And Things Looked So Strange About Him! - Just As If He Had Got Into Fairyland, Of Which He Knew Quite As Much As Anybody; For His Mother Had No Money To Buy Books To Set Him Wrong On The Subject.

What I Would Say Is This, That The Light Is Not Blinding Because God Would Hide, But Because The Truth Is Too Glorious For Our Vision.

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.

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

The Ruin Of A Man's Teaching Comes Of His Followers, Such As Having Never Touched The Foundation He Has Laid, Build Upon It Wood, Hay, And Stubble, Fit Only To Be Burnt. Therefore, If Only To Avoid His Worst Foes, His Admirers, A Man Should Avoid System. The More Correct A System The Worse Will It Be Misunderstood; Its Professed Admirers Will Take Both Its Errors And Their Misconceptions Of Its Truths, And Hold Them Forth As Its Essence.

To Judge Religion We Must Have It--not Stare At It From The Bottom Of A Seemingly Interminable Ladder.

Past Tears Are Present Strength.

God Is The God Of The Animals In A Far Lovelier Way, I Suspect, Than Many Of Us Dare To Think, But He Will Not Be The God Of A Man By Making A Good Beast Of Him.

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.

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