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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.

-George MacDonald

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What A Good Thing,

George MacDonald

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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.

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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)

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

It Was Foolish Indeed - Thus To Run Farther And Farther From All Who Could Help Her, As If She Had Been Seeking A Fit Spot For The Goblin Creature To Eat Her In At His Leisure; But That Is The Way Fear Serves Us: It Always Sides With The Thing We Are Afraid Of.

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.

You Doubt Because You Love Truth.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Ambition Is But The Evil Shadow Of Aspiration.

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

All That Is Not God Is Death.

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.

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.

Fear Is Faithlessness.

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

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

We Should Teach Our Children To Think No More Of Their Bodies When Dead Than They Do Of Their Hair When Cut Off, Or Of Their Old Clothes When They Have Done With Them.

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

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.

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.

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

"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?"

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Holy Spirit Of The Spring Is Working Silently.

What Would The Living One Have Me Do?

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.

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.

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 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.

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?

To Be Kind Neither Hurts Nor Compromises.

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

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

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

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.

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

Do Not Measure God's Mind By Your Own.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Simply Absurd To Say You Believe, Or Even Want To Believe, In Him, If You Do Not Do Anything He Tells You.

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.

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.

All Is Loss That Comes Between Us And Christ.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Will Is Not Unfrequently Weakness.

To Try To Be Brave Is To Be Brave.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

One Chief Cause Of The Amount Of Unbelief In The World Is Tha Tthose Who Have Seen Something Of The Glory Of Christ Set Themselves To Theorize Concerning Him Rather Than To Obey Him.

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.

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.

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

Cleverness Is Cheap. It Is Faith That He Praises.

Afflictions Are But The Shadows Of God's Wings.

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.

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

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

It 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

All Haste Implies Weakness.

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.

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

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

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

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

Burdens Of Life

Sad, Indeed, Would The Whole Matter Be If The Bible Had Told Us Everything God Meant Us To Believe. But Herein Is The Bible Greatly Wronged. It Nowhere Lays Claim To Be Regarded As The Word, The Way, The Truth. The Bible Leads Us To Jesus, The Inexhaustible, The Ever-unfolding Revelation Of God. It Is Christ "in Whom Are Hid All The Treasures Of Wisdom And Knowledge," Not The Bible, Save As Leading To Him.

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.

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.

Philosophy Is Really Homesickness.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Believe In Fate, Never In Chance.

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

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

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.

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.

Those That Hope Little Cannot Grow Much.

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.

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

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

Affliction Is But The Shadow Of God's Wing.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Religion Is Life Essential.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.'

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

Alas! How Easily Things Go Wrong!

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

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.

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

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

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.

Seeing Is Not Believing - It Is Only Seeing.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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