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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.

-George MacDonald

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Now I Want You

George MacDonald

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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.

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

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.

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

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

To Say On The Authority Of The Bible That God Does A Thing No Honourable Man Would Do, Is To Lie Against God; To Say That It Is Therefore Right, Is To Lie Against The Very Spirit Of God.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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

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.

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.

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

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

Seeing Is Not Believing - It Is Only Seeing.

What Would The Living One Have Me Do?

She Would Wonder What Had Hurt Her When She Found Her Face Wet With Tears, And Then Would Wonder How She Could Have Been Hurt Without Knowing It.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 I Said To Speedicut, It's Hell In The Diplomatic.

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Meditation Practice

All That Is Not God Is Death.

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.

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

"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?"

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

To Cease To Wonder Is To Fall Plumb-down From The Childlike To The Commonplace—the Most Undivine Of All Moods Intellectual. Our Nature Can Never Be At Home Among Things That Are Not Wonderful To Us.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Two People May Be At The Same Spot In Manners And Behaviour, And Yet One May Be Getting Better, And The Other Worse, Which Is The Greatest Of Differences That Could Possibly Exist Between Them.

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.

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.

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

Misinterpretation

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

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.

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

Past Tears Are Present Strength.

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

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

We Are 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.

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.

The Principle Part Of Faith Is Patience.

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

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.

Affliction Is But The Shadow Of God's Wing.

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

But, For As Cold And Wretched As It Looks, The Sun Has Not Forsaken It. He Has Only Drawn Away From It A Little, For Good Reasons, One Of Which Is That We May Learn That We Cannot Do Without Him.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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)

Alas! How Easily Things Go Wrong!

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.

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.

Every Truth Must Be Accompanied By Some Corresponding Act.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

It Needs Brains To Be A Real Fool.

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

It Is By Loving, And Not By Being Loved, That One Can Come Nearest The Soul Of Another; Yea, That, Where Two Love, It Is The Loving Of Each Other, That Originates And Perfects And Assures Their Blessedness. I Knew That Love Gives To Him That Loveth, Power Over Any Soul Beloved, Even If That Soul Know Him Not, Bringing Him Inwardly Close To That Spirit; A Power That Cannot Be But For Good; For In Proportion As Selfishness Intrudes, The Love Ceases, And The Power Which Springs Therefrom Dies. Yet All Love Will, One Day, Meet With Its Return.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Man's Rank Is His Power To Uplift.

There Is An Aching That Is Worse Than Any Pain.

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.

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

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

A True Friend Is Forever A Friend.

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.

Religion Is Life Essential.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beauty And Sadness Always Go Together.

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

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.

Do Not Measure God's Mind By Your Own.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

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.

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

To Try To Be Brave Is To Be Brave.

The Greatest Forces Lie In The Region Of The Uncomprehended.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You Doubt Because You Love Truth.

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

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

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.

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

If There Be A God And One Has Never Sought Him, It Will Be Small Consolation To Remember That One Could Not Get Proof Of His Existence.

If There Is A God

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

Philosophy Is Really Homesickness.

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.

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

I Am An Optimistic Fatalist. This World And All Its Beginnings Will Pass On Into Something Better.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Love Is The Opener As Well As Closer Of Eyes.

If We Will But Let Our God And Father Work His Will With Us, There Can Be No Limit To His Enlargement Of Our Existence

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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”.

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.

What God May Hereafter Require Of You, You Must Not Give Yourself The Least Trouble About. Everything He Gives You To Do, You Must Do As Well As Ever You Can, And That Is The Best Possible Preparation For What He May Want You To Do Next. If People Would But Do What They Have To Do, They Would Always Find Themselves Ready For What Came Next.

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

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