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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.

-George MacDonald

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Could You Not Give

George MacDonald

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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.

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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.

Do Not Measure God's Mind By Your Own.

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

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.

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

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

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

Philosophy Is Really Homesickness.

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

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.

The Word Doctrine, As Used In The Bible, Means Teaching Of Duty, Not Theory.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Meditation Practice

There Is But One Thing That Can Free A Man From Superstition, And That Is Belief. All History Proves It. The Most Sceptical Have Ever Been The Most Credulous.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

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

Ah, What Is It We Send Up Thither, Where Our Thoughts Are Either A Dissonance Or A Sweetness And A Grace?

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

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

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.

The Root Of All Rebellion: It Is Because We Are Not Near Enough To Thee To Partake Of Thy Liberty That We Want A Liberty Of Our Own Different From Thine.

Now I Want You To Think That In Life Troubles Will Come, Which Seem As If They Never Would Pass Away. The Night And Storm Look As If They Would Last Forever; But The Calm And The Morning Cannot Be Stayed; The Storm In Its Very Nature Is Transient. The Effort Of Nature, As That Of The Human Heart, Ever Is To Return To Its Repose, For God Is Peace.

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

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 No Strength In Unbelief. Even The Unbelief Of What Is False Is No Source Of Might. It Is The Truth Shining From Behind That Gives The Strength To Disbelieve.

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

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.

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.

A God Must Have A God For Company. And Lo! Thou Hast The Son-god To Thy Friend. Thou Honour'st His Obedience, He Thy Law. Into Thy Secret Life-will He Doth See; Thou Fold'st Him Round In Live Love Perfectly- One Two, Without Beginning, Without End; In Love, Life, Strength, And Truth, Perfect Without A Flaw.

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.'

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

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.

...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.

What Does God Want Me To Do?”, Not “what Will God Do If I Do So And So?

But There Are Not A Few Who Would Be Indignant At Having Their Belief In God Questioned, Who Yet Seem Greatly To Fear Imagining Him Better Than He Is.

The Best Preparation For The Future Is The Present Well Seen To, And The Last Duty Done.

Fear Is Faithlessness.

All That Is Not God Is Death.

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.

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.

Past Tears Are Present Strength.

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.

Age Is Not All Decay; It Is The Ripening, The Swelling, Of The Fresh Life Within, That Withers And Bursts The Husk.

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

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

Suppose You Didn't Know Him, Would That Make Any Difference?' 'no,' Said Willie, After Thinking A Little. 'other People Would Know Him If I Didn't.' 'yes, And If Nobody Knew Him, God Would Know Him, And Anybody God Has Thought Worth Making, It's An Honor To Do Anything For.

All About Us, In Earth And Air, Wherever The Eye Or Ear Can Reach, There Is A Power Ever Breathing Itself Forth In Signs, Now In Daisy, Now In A Wind-waft, A Cloud, A Sunset; A Power That Holds Constant And Sweetest Relation With The Dark And Silent World Within Us. The Same God Who Is In Us, And Upon Whose Tree We Are The Buds, If Not Yet The Flowers, Also Is All About Us- Inside, The Spirit; Outside, The Word. And The Two Are Ever Trying To Meet In Us.

The Doing Of Things From Duty Is But A Stage On The Road To The Kingdom Of Truth And Love.

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

All That Man Sees Has To Do With Man. Worlds Cannot Be Without An Intermundane Relationship. The Community Of The Centre Of All Creation Suggests An Interradiating Connection And Dependence Of The Parts. Else A Grander Idea Is Conceivable Than That Which Is Already Embodied.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

People Must Not Choose Their Neighbors; They Must Take The Neighbors That God Sends Them. The Neighbor Is Just The Person Who Is Next To You At The Moment, The Person With Whom Any Business Has Brought You Into Contact.

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

The Perfection Of His Relation To Us Swallows Up All Our Imperfections, All Our Defeats, All Our Evils; For Our Childhood Is Born Of His Fatherhood. That Man Is Perfect In Faith Who Can Come To God In The Utter Dearth Of His Feelings And His Desires, Without A Glow Or An Aspiration, With The Weight Of Low Thoughts, Failures, Neglects, And Wandering Forgetfulness, And Say To Him, “thou Art My Refuge, Because Thou Art My Home”.

If Those Who Had Set Themselves To Explain The Various Theories Of Christianity Had Set Themselves Instead To Do The Will Of The Master, How Different The World Would Be Now!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

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.

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.

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.

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

Never Was There A More Injurous Mistake Than To Say It Was Thebusiness Only Of The Clergy To Care For Souls.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Religion Is Life Essential.

When We Are Out Of Sympathy With The Young, Then I Think Our Work In This World Is Over

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. How Often We Look Upon God As Our Last And Feeblest Resource! We Go To Him Because We Have Nowhere Else To Go. And Then We Learn That The Storms Of Life Have Driven Us, Not Upon The Rocks, But Into The Desired Haven.

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.

The Possession Of Wealth Is, As It Were, Prepayment, And Involves An Obligation Of Honor To The Doing Of Correspondent Work.

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

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

I Would Not Favour A Fiction To Keep A Whole World Out Of Hell. The Hell That A Lie Would Keep Any Man Out Of Is Doubtless The Very Best Place For Him To Go To. It Is Truth... That Saves The World.

As Christ Is The Blossom Of Humanity, So The Blossom Of Every Man Is Christ Perfected In Him.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

You Doubt Because You Love Truth.

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.

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

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.

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.

Those That Hope Little Cannot Grow Much.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Where There Is No Choice, We Do Well To Make No Difficulty.

Why Should My Love Be Powerless To Help Another?

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.

Doubt May Be A Poor Encouragement To Do Anything, But It Is A Bad Reason For Doing Nothing.

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

I Believe In Fate, Never In Chance.

Except The Light Of The Knowledge Of The Glory Of God In The Face Of Christ Jesus Make A Man Sick Of His Opinions, He May Hold Them To Doomsday For Me; For No Opinion, I Repeat Is Christianity, And No Preaching Of Any Plan Of Salvation Is The Preaching Of The Glorious Gospel Of The Living God.

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

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

A True Friend Is Forever A Friend.

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

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.

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.

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

Attitudes Are More Important Than Facts.

Faith Is Obedience, Not Compliance.

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

The Region Of The Senses Is The Unbelieving Part Of The Human Soul.

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.

No Story Ever Really Ends, And I Think I Know Why.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

We Are Not Made For Law, We Are Made For Love.

In Giving, A Man Receives More Than He Gives; And The More Is In Proportion To The Worth Of The Thing Given.

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.

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.

To Be Kind Neither Hurts Nor Compromises.

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

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

He (god) Loves What I Shall Be.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Were I Asked, What Is A Fairytale? I Should Reply, Read Undine: That Is A Fairytale.

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.

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.

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

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!

It Is When People Do Wrong Things Wilfully That They Are The More Likely To Do Them Again.

There Is No Slave But The Creature That Wills Against Its Creator.

To Be Trusted Is A Greater Compliment Than Being Loved.

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

What Would The Living One Have Me Do?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

But God Lets Men Have Their Playthings, Like The Children They Are, That They May Learn To Distinguish Them From True Possessions. If They Are Not Learning That He Takes Them From Them, And Tries The Other Way: For Lack Of Them And Its Misery, They Will Perhaps Seek The True!

What Can Money Do To Console A Man With A Headache?

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.

For The Greatest Fool And Rascal In Creation There Is Yet A Worse Condition; And That Is, Not To Know It, But To Think Himself A Respectable Man.

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

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.

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

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.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

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

[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."

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.

Endurance Must Conquer, Where Force Could Not Reach.

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.

Thinking Of You

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

Things Come To The Poor That Can't Get In At The Door Of The Rich. Their Money Somehow Blocks It Up. It Is A Great Privilege To Be Poor--one That No Man Covets, And Brat A Very Few Have Sought To Retain, But One That Yet Many Have Learned To Prize.

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.

I Say Again, If I Cannot Draw A Horse, I Will Not Write This Is A Horse Under What I Foolishly Meant For One.

"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?"

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.

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

But There Is No Veil Like Light--no Adamantine Armor Against Hurt Like The Truth.

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.

We Are Often Unable To Tell People What They Need To Know, Because They Want To Know Something Else, And Would Therefore Only Misunderstand What We Said.

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

A Beast Does Not Know That He Is A Beast, And The Nearer A Man Gets To Being A Beast, The Less He Knows It.

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

We Can Walk Without Fear, Full Of Hope And Courage And Strength To Do His Will, Waiting For The Endless Good Which He Is Always Giving As Fast As He Can Get Us Able To Take It In.

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

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?

Instead Of Asking Yourself Whether You Believe Or Not, Ask Yourself Whether You Have, This Day, Done One Thing Because He Said, Do It! Or Once Abstained Because He Said, Do Not Do It! It Is Simply Absurd To Say You Believe, Or Even Want To Believe, In Him, If You Do Not Do Anything He Tells You.

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

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

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