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No Words Can Express How Much The World Owes To Sorrow. Most Of The Psalms Were Born In The Wilderness. Most Of The Epistles Were Written In A Prison. The Greatest Thoughts Of The Greatest Thinkers Have All Passed Through Fire. The Greatest Poets Have "learned In Suffering What They Taught In Song." In Bonds Bunyan Lived The Allegory That He Afterwards Wrote, And We May Thank Bedford Jail For The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Comfort, Afflicted Christian! When God Is About To Make Pre-eminent Use Of A Person, He Put Them In The Fire.

-George MacDonald

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No Words Can Express

George MacDonald

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No Words Can Express How Much The World Owes To Sorrow. Most Of The Psalms Were Born In The Wilderness. Most Of The Epistles Were Written In A Prison. The Greatest Thoughts Of The Greatest Thinkers Have All Passed Through Fire. The Greatest Poets Have "learned In Suffering What They Taught In Song." In Bonds Bunyan Lived The Allegory That He Afterwards Wrote, And We May Thank Bedford Jail For The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Comfort, Afflicted Christian! When God Is About To Make Pre-eminent Use Of A Person, He Put Them In The Fire.

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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

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

To Be Trusted Is A Greater Compliment Than Being Loved.

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

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

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

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

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.

Those That Hope Little Cannot Grow Much.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

Faith Is Obedience, Not Compliance.

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

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.

Not Only Then Has Each Man His Individual Relation To God, But Each Man Has His Peculiar Relation To God.

Good Souls Many Will One Day Be Horrified At The Things They Now Believe Of God.

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

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

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

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

A Man May Sink By Such Slow Degrees That, Long After He Is A Devil, He May Go On Being A Good Churchman Or A Good Dissenter And Thinking Himself A Good Christian.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Would Rather Be What God Chose To Make Me Than The Most Glorious Creature That I Could Think Of; For To Have Been Thought About, Born In God's Thought, And Then Made By God, Is The Dearest, Grandest And Most Precious Thing In All Thinking.

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

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

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

Our Life Is No Dream; But It Ought To Become One, And Perhaps Will.

Religion Is Life Essential.

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

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.

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.

It Is Vain To Think That Any Weariness, However Caused, Any Burden, However Slight, May Be Got Rid Of Otherwise Than By Bowing The Neck To The Yoke Of The Father's Will. There Can Be No Other Rest For Heart And Soul Than He Has Created. From Every Burden, From Every Anxiety, From All Dread Of Shame Or Loss, Even Loss Of Love Itself, That Yoke Will Set Us Free.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Attitudes Are More Important Than Facts.

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.

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Obedience Is The Key To Every Door.

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.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

To Try To Be Brave Is To Be Brave.

The Bible Is To Me The Most Precious Thing In The World, Because It Tells Me His Story; And What Good Men Thought About Him Who Knew Him And Accepted Him.

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

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.

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

There Is An Aching That Is Worse Than Any Pain.

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

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.

"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?"

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

To Be Humbly Ashamed Is To Be Plunged In The Cleansing Bath Of Truth.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

By All Means Rid Yourself Of An Impoverished Faith.

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.

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.

All Haste Implies Weakness.

[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."

Philosophy Is Really Homesickness.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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?

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.

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 Mind Of The Many Is Not The Mind Of God.

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

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!

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

All Is Loss That Comes Between Us And Christ.

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.

To Be Kind Neither Hurts Nor Compromises.

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

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.

The Region Belonging To The Pure Intellect Is Straitened: The Imagination Labours To Extend Its Territories, To Give It Room. She Sweeps Across The Boarders, Searching Out New Lands Into Which She May Guide Her Plodding Brother. The Imagination Is The Light Which Redeems From The Darkness For The Eyes Of The Understanding. Novalis Says, 'the Imagination Is The Stuff Of The Intellect' -affords, That Is, The Material Upon Which The Intellect Works.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

O Christ, My Life, Possess Me Utterly. Take Me And Make A Little Christ Of Me. If I Am Anything But Thy Father's Son, 'tis Something Not Yet From The Darkness Won. Oh, Give Me Light To Live With Open Eyes. Oh, Give Me Life To Hope Above All Skies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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”.

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

The Time For Speaking Seldom Arrives, The Time For Being Never Departs.

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

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.

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

Endurance Must Conquer, Where Force Could Not Reach.

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

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

...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.

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.

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.

Afflictions Are But The Shadows Of God's Wings.

What Would The Living One Have Me Do?

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.

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.'

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

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.

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

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

He Who Is Faithful Over A Few Things Is A Lord Of Cities. It Does Not Matter Whether You Preach In Westminster Abbey Or Teach A Ragged Class, So You Be Faithful. The Faithfulness Is All.

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.

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.

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.

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

No Words Can Express How Much The World Owes To Sorrow. Most Of The Psalms Were Born In The Wilderness. Most Of The Epistles Were Written In A Prison. The Greatest Thoughts Of The Greatest Thinkers Have All Passed Through Fire. The Greatest Poets Have "learned In Suffering What They Taught In Song." In Bonds Bunyan Lived The Allegory That He Afterwards Wrote, And We May Thank Bedford Jail For The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Comfort, Afflicted Christian! When God Is About To Make Pre-eminent Use Of A Person, He Put Them In The Fire.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

Man's Rank Is His Power To Uplift.

Better To Have The Poet's Heart Than Brain, Feeling Than Song.

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

Come, Come To Him Who Made Thy Heart; Come Weary And Oppressed; To Come To Jesus Is Thy Part; His Part, To Give Thee Rest.

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.

It Needs Brains To Be A Real Fool.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Believe In Fate, Never In Chance.

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