H J Macdonald Quotes & Sayings

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. — George MacDonald

The first principle of solid wisdom is discretion, without it all the erudition of life is merely bagatelle. — Norm MacDonald

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. — George MacDonald

I have memories of the clearest crystal mountain days imaginable, when we fortunates in the height seemed to be sky people living in light alone ... — J. E. H. MacDonald

Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This in the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest. — George MacDonald

Twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing. — George MacDonald

Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected. — George MacDonald

You have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can ever meet. — John D. MacDonald

I did not want to quarrel with her, although I thought her both presumptuous and rude. — George MacDonald

Graff was floating on his back in the pool when George Wall and I went outside. His brown belly swelled above its surface like the humpback of a Galapagos tortoise. Mrs. Graff, fully clothed, was sitting by herself in a sunny corner. Her black dress and black hair seemed to annul the sunlight. Her face and body had the distinction that takes the place of beauty in people who have suffered long and hard. — Ross Macdonald

Her dark eyes were like twin entrances to two deep caves. Nothing lived in those caves. Maybe something had, once upon a time. There were piles of picked bones back in there, some scribbling on the walls, and some grey ash where the fires had been. — John D. MacDonald

began to talk about the parish. — George MacDonald

Vast flocks of fieldfares netted the sky, turning it to something strangely like a sixteenth-century sleeve sewn with pearls. — Helen Macdonald

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. — George MacDonald

I'm as religious as the next man - which is to say I'll keep in with the local parson for form's sake and read the lessons on feast-days because my tenants expect it, but I've never been fool enough to confuse religion with belief in God. That's where so many clergymen ... go wrong — George MacDonald Fraser

By fall, they can read. It happened by osmosis, the way it ought to: after they have spent several months on Daddy's lap, following his spoken words with their eyes and pretending to read, their comes a day when they no longer have to pretend. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

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. — George MacDonald

Surely this youth will not serve our ends,' said I, 'for he weeps.' "The old woman smiled. 'Past tears are present strength,' said she. "'Oh!' said my brother, 'I saw you weep once over an eagle you shot.' "'That was because it was so like you, brother,' I replied; 'but indeed, this youth may have better cause for tears than that - I was wrong.' "'Wait — George MacDonald

I am pretty sure that if she had been one of us, that is, one of his own, he would have taken sharper measures with her; but he said we must never attempt to treat other people's children as our own, for they are not our own. We did not love them enough, he said, to make severity safe either for them or for us. — George MacDonald

Made a sketch later on the cabin verandah, but it was impossible to keep up with the changes. Oh the difficulties of mountain art for too little genius. — J. E. H. MacDonald

If the function of the artist is to see, the first duty of the critic is to understand what the artist saw. — J. E. H. MacDonald

To paint from nature is to realize one's sensations, not to copy what is before one. — J. E. H. MacDonald

One felt that the mountains are not completed. The builders are still at work. Stones come rolling and jumping from the upper scaffolding and often from the chasms one hears the thundering as the gods of the mountains change their minds. — J. E. H. MacDonald

Snow and reflections were beautiful but transient effects and other difficulties were beyond me. — J. E. H. MacDonald

what is the love of child, or mother, or dog, but the love of God, shining through another being - which is a being just because he shines through it. — George MacDonald

And we had met at last in this same cave of greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love, and the odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping woods were the only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude. — George MacDonald

God pours out his choicest blessings on those who are anxious that nothing shall stick to their hands. Individuals who value the rainy day above the present agony of the world will get no blessing from God. — William MacDonald

The biblical counselor must always remember that the ROOT problem is deeper than skin; it is sin. The ultimate cure is not culture, but Christ. — James MacDonald

In the windowless tomb of a blind mother, in the dead of the night, under feeble rays of a lamp in an alabaster globe, a girl came into the darkness with a wail. — George MacDonald

The two pillars of 'political correctness' are, a) willful ignorance, and b) a steadfast refusal to face the truth. — George MacDonald Fraser

Depression is anger slowed down; panic is grief speeded up. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

You ever see 'The Dating Game'? That's a weird game show. The prize on that show: another contestant. Talk about cheap. — Norm MacDonald

He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had forgotten it, but was miserable about it, notwithstanding. And this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart, and telling him to be good. 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 Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the cabman's heart it was misery; in the soul of St John it was perfect blessedness. — George MacDonald

I like to do talk show appearances where I get to just be myself, and I do stand-up where I can completely be myself. That's what I've always loved the most, of anything. — Norm MacDonald

Now it stands to reason, mister, any damn fool stares into the sun long enough, he'll end up seeing exactly what some other damn fool tells him he's going to see. — John D. MacDonald

It is the work of the Canadian artist to paint or play or write in such a way that life will be enlarged for himself and his fellow man. The painter will look around him ... and finding everything good, will strive to communicate that feeling through a portrayal of the essentials of sunlight, or snow, or tree or tragic cloud, or human face, according to his power and individuality. — J. E. H. MacDonald

Do not lower the standard or cater to the worldly laxness of the average Christian by making the way in easy. Make sure that everyone who joins fully understands his duties and obligations and is willing, in Christ's strength, to undertake them. — Isabella MacDonald Alden

I am an emptiness for Thee to fill; my soul a cavern for Thy sea — George MacDonald

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. — James MacDonald

It doesn't matter what has happened, better things are coming. God's plan produces hope in me. — James MacDonald

The thief you must fear the most is not the one who steals mere things. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

All change begins with a change of mind the Bible calls repentance. Repentance is detecting and destroying the rationalizations that led to me checking the sinful choice box in the first place. Repentance is what every biblical prophet was calling for because that is where a man begins to move from depravity to quality. Read the Old Testament and you'll notice the nonstop echo of calls for repentance. Ezekiel announced, Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. — James MacDonald

The beginning of wisdom is the knowledge of folly. — Norm MacDonald

But he remembered that even if she did box his ears, he musn't box hers again, for she was a girl, and all that boys must do, if girls are rude, is to go away and leave them. — George MacDonald