Maclaren Quotes & Sayings

Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact, He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact, He shall reign, and you and I will stand there. I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts, and think about it, a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence. — Alexander MacLaren

The message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection. — Alexander MacLaren

Sorrow and loss are meant to prepare us for the vision of God to purge the inward eye that it may see Him. — Alexander MacLaren

Remember that vision on the Mount of Transfiguration; and let it be ours, even in the glare of earthly joys and brightnesses, to lift up our eyes, like those wondering three, and see no man any more, save Jesus only. — Alexander MacLaren

I'm not surprised that I tend to go for the dark side. I was a really scared kid, so I think I understand what scares people. — Michelle MacLaren

A picture without sky has no glory. This present, unless we see gleaming beyond it the eternal calm of the heavens, above the tossing tree tops with withering leaves, and the smoky chimneys, is a poor thing for our eyes to gaze at, or our hearts to love, or our hands to toil on. — Alexander MacLaren

Life should be a constant vision of God's presence. Here is our defense against being led away by the gauds and shows of earth's vulgar attractions. — Alexander MacLaren

In 'Breaking Bad,' we have a lead character who definitely finds himself in a situation he would never have expected to find himself in normally. — Michelle MacLaren

Embrace in one act the two truths-thine own sin, and God's infinite mercy in Jesus Christ. — Alexander MacLaren

In heaven after ages of ages of growing glory, we shall have to say, as each new wave of the shoreless, sunlit sea bears us onward, It doth not yet appear what we shall be. — Alexander MacLaren

No wise forward look can ignore the possibility of many sorrows and the certainty of some. Hope has ever something of dread in her eyes. The road will not be always bright and smooth, but will sometimes plunge down into grim cations, where no sunbeams reach. But even that anticipation may be calm. "Thou art with me" is enough. He who guides into the gorge will guide through it. It is not a cul de sac, shut in with precipices, at the far end; but it opens out on shining tablelands, where there is greener pasture. — Alexander MacLaren

The first plague-spot is the accumulation of wealth in few hands, and the selfish withdrawal of its possessors from the life of the community. In an agricultural society like that of Judah, that clotting of wealth took the shape of 'land-grabbing,' and of evicting the small proprietors. We see it in more virulent forms in our great commercial centres, where the big men often become big by crushing out the little ones, and denude themselves of responsibility to the community in proportion as they clothe themselves with wealth. Wherever wealth is thus congested, and its obligations ignored by selfish indulgence, the seeds are sown which will spring up one day in 'anarchism.' A man need not be a prophet to have it whispered in his ear, as Isaiah had, that the end of selfish capitalism is a convulsion in which 'many houses shall be desolate,' and many fields barren. — Alexander MacLaren

The mystery of the universe, and the meaning of God's world, are shrouded in hopeless obscurity, until we learn to feel that all laws suppose a lawgiver, and that all working involves a Divine energy. — Alexander MacLaren

Don't seek to lead people to a God you have ceased to believe in. — Ian Maclaren

Fear is an exciting time. It's our soul telling us that we need to change. Change is powerful. — Jim MacLaren

Live each moment like it's the last moment in your life. — Jim MacLaren

Jesus was himself the one convincing and permanent miracle. — Ian Maclaren

'Once Upon a Time in the West' is one of my favorite films. — Michelle MacLaren

In such a world as this, with such hearts as ours, weakness is wickedness in the long run. Whoever lets himself be shaped and guided by any thing lower than an inflexible will, fixed in obedience to God, will in the end be shaped into a deformity, and guided to wreck and ruin — Alexander MacLaren

The hand that holds the seven stars is as loving as the hand that was laid in blessing upon the little children; the face that is as the sun shining in its strength beams with as much love as when it drew publicans and harlots to His feet. The breast that is girt with the golden girdle is the same breast upon which John leaned his happy head. — Alexander MacLaren

Turn your confidence and your fears alike into prayer. — Alexander MacLaren

If our thoughts are stretching across the sea to the landing at home, and the welcome there, we shall not fight with our fellow-passengers about our cabins or places at the table. — Alexander MacLaren

Grieve not the Christ of God, who redeems us; and remember that we grieve Him most when we will not let Him pour His love upon us, but turn a sullen, unresponsive unbelief towards His pleading grace, as some glacier shuts out the sunshine from the mountain-side with its thick-ribbed ice. — Alexander MacLaren

The type of producing that I did for many years involved working very closely with directors. — Michelle MacLaren

'Breaking Bad' was a magical, amazing experience. I'm honored to have been a part of it. — Michelle MacLaren

I've been very fortunate to have the opportunity to work on wonderful shows. — Michelle MacLaren

To-day is given us mainly that we may learn to know God better, and to love Him more, and to serve Him more joyfully. — Alexander MacLaren

You have nothing to do but to receive the things that are freely given to you of God - the forgiveness, the cleansing, the life, that come from Christ by faith. — Alexander MacLaren

Fruitful and acceptable worship begins before it begins. — Alexander MacLaren

One man, with God to back him, is always in the majority. — Alexander MacLaren

If our faith in God is not the veriest sham, it demands, and will produce, the abandonment sometimes, the subordination always, of eternal helps and material good. — Alexander MacLaren

Seek to cultivate a buoyant joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life. — Alexander MacLaren

Let me always remember that it is not the amount of religious knowledge which I have, but the amount which I use, that determines my religious position and character. — Alexander MacLaren

He that has his trust set upon God does not need to dread anything except the weakening or the paralyzing of that trust. — Alexander MacLaren

The true confidence which is faith in Christ, and the true diffidence which is utter distrust of myself
are identical. — Alexander MacLaren

That which of all things unfits man for the reception of Christ as a Savior, is not gross profligacy and outward, vehement transgression, but it is self-complacency, fatal self-righteousness and self-sufficiency. — Alexander MacLaren

We must have Christ in our hearts, that He may shine forth from our lives. — Alexander MacLaren

Every character a writer creates has some of themselves in it somewhere. — Michelle MacLaren

Only he who can say, "The Lord is the strength of my life" can say, "Of whom shall I be afraid?" — Alexander MacLaren

Every life has dark tracts and long stretches of somber tint, and no representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light, and flings no shadows on the canvas. — Alexander MacLaren

Graphic novels are such a visually creative world - it's really interesting what they can do in one sketch. Now I'm hooked. — Michelle MacLaren

The root of all steadfastness is in consecration to God. — Alexander MacLaren

He who makes his needs known to God gains for immediate answer "the peace of God which passeth understanding," and can wait God's time for the rest. — Alexander MacLaren

Logically, faith comes first, and love next; but in life they will spring up together in the soul; the interval which separates them is impalpable, and in every act of trust, love is present; and fundamental to every emotion of love to Christ is trust in Christ. — Alexander MacLaren

The apostolic church thought more about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ than about death and heaven. The early Christians were looking, not for a cleft in the ground called a grave but for a cleavage in the sky called Glory. — Alexander MacLaren

That is faith, cleaving to Christ, twining round Him with all the tendrils of our heart, as the vine does round its support. — Alexander MacLaren

I really want to be part of things from the ground up wherever possible. Not to say that I'm not open to being a gun for hire - I am, absolutely - but I really enjoy developing. — Michelle MacLaren

I did every odd job you could possibly imagine: Holding a sign in the rain for 14 hours straight, sweeping up cigarette butts, pouring coffee, running around - anything I could to be on a film set. I wanted to be in the business. So I'd say, 'You need that job done? Fine,' and I became indispensable to people. — Michelle MacLaren

While the agent of renovation is the Divine Spirit, and the condition of renovation is our cleaving to Christ, the medium of renovation and the weapon which the transforming grace employs is "the word of the truth of the gospel," whereby we are sanctified. — Alexander MacLaren

The tears of Christ are the pity of God. The gentleness of Jesus is the long-suffering of God. The tenderness of Jesus is the love of God. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. — Alexander MacLaren

Heroism isn't a one time thing: Live Heroically. — Jim MacLaren

Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do yon mean that they shall be for you? — Alexander MacLaren

True love is an intense desire for the presence of its object. God is only ours in reality when we are conscious of His nearness, and that is strange love of Him which is content to pass days without ever setting Him before itself. — Alexander MacLaren

I seem to gravitate toward the dark side of things when it comes to directing. I love action, but I love the drama as well. — Michelle MacLaren

Kindness does not require us to be blind to facts or to live in fancies, but it does require us to cherish a habit of goodwill, ready to show pity if sorrow appears, and slow to turn away even if hostility appears. — Alexander MacLaren

If God sends us on stony paths, He will provide us with strong shoes. — Alexander MacLaren

Ability involves responsibility; power, to its last particle, is duty. — Ian Maclaren

Self-preservation is not a man's first duty: flight is his last. Better and wiser and infinitely nobler to stand a mark for the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and to stop at our post though we fall there, better infinitely to toil on, even when toil seems vain, than cowardly to keep a whole skin at the cost of a wounded conscience or despairingly to fling up work, because the ground is hard and the growth of the seed imperceptible. Prudent advices, when the prudence is only inspired by sense, are generally foolish. — Alexander MacLaren

The world takes its notions of God from the people who say that they belong to God's family. They read us a great deal more than they read the Bible. They see us; they only hear about Jesus Christ. — Alexander MacLaren

Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God . — Alexander MacLaren

God gives us power to bear all the sorrows of His making; but He does not give us power to bear the sorrows of our own making, which the anticipation of sorrow most assuredly is. — Alexander MacLaren

Peace comes not from the absence of trouble, but from the presence of God. — Alexander MacLaren

Be kind to one another, because most of us are fighting a hard battle. — Ian Maclaren

Director Michelle MacLaren is the John Cage of this malevolent silence, able to wield it as precisely as a pointillist with a paintbrush. And with 'To'hajiilee,' the final episode of Breaking Bad she'll ever direct, she has painted her masterpiece. Under the unblinking eye of her relentless camera, this was television not as entertainment but as endurance. It was agonizing, nauseating, unbearable. I loved every minute but hated every second. I couldn't wait for it to be over but I never wanted it to end. And I especially never wanted it to end like that. — Andy Greenwald

Trust yourselves, my brethren, to the immortal love and perfect work of the Divine Saviour, and by His dear might your days will advance by peaceful stages, whereof each gathers up and carries forward the blessings of all that went before, to a death which shall be a birth. — Alexander MacLaren

Be kind to everyone,becaus e everyone you meet is fighting a battle — Ian Maclaren

The longest way round is the shortest way home.
(Quoting Alexander MacLaren, The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons) — C.S. Lewis

If you would win the world, melt it, do not hammer it. — Alexander MacLaren

I am satisfied, for I awake in Thy likeness. — Alexander MacLaren

In general, we like to shoot Breaking Bad like a modern day Western, and Sergio Leone is one of my all-time favorite directors. — Michelle MacLaren

Why should we live halfway up the hill and swathed in the mists, when we might have an unclouded sky and a radiant sun over our heads if we would climb higher and walk in the light of His face? — Alexander MacLaren

To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty. — Alexander MacLaren

The Gospel is not a mere message of deliverance, but a canon of conduct; it is not a theology to be accepted, but it is ethics to be lived. It is not to be believed only, but it is to be taken into life as a guide. — Alexander MacLaren

I always say, 'I love producing, but directing is my passion,' and for a while, I had to produce to support my directing habit. — Michelle MacLaren

Conflict, not progress, is the word that defines man's path from darkness into light. No holiness is won by any other means than this, that wickedness should be slain day by day, and hour by hour. — Alexander MacLaren

Trust Christ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and the tranquil heart. — Alexander MacLaren

There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, nothing will be overpowering, when, living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. — Alexander MacLaren

Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ gives and is. — Alexander MacLaren

I said, I love you, you arrogant arse." She smiled. "I always have. You're my mate, Owen Breese MacLaren. The distance won't change that. It never has. — Elizabeth Morgan

I approach an action sequence almost like a mathematical problem. Sometimes you get these action sequences that you read and go, 'Oh my God, this is huge, how do I do it?' and I go, 'Just a step at a time. Sit down and plot each piece of it out.' — Michelle MacLaren

Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a good reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it. — Alexander MacLaren

The more we work the more we need to pray. In this day of activity there is great danger, not of doing too much, but of praying too little for so much work. — Alexander MacLaren

No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it. — Alexander MacLaren

Let us learn how the love of Christ, received into the heart, triumphs gradually but surely over all sin, transforms character, turning even its weakness into strength, and so, from the depths of transgression and the very gates of hell, raises men to God. — Alexander MacLaren

My feeling is, from when I started on 'Breaking Bad,' there's no reason to pick and choose because every episode is great. Whatever episode you get, you're lucky to do it. — Michelle MacLaren

God looks on the upright, as has been said; and the upright shall gaze on Him ... That mutual gaze is blessedness. They who looking up behold Jehovah are brave to front all foes and to keep calm hearts in the midst of alarms. Hope burns like a pillar of fire in them when it is gone out in others; and to all the suggestions of their own timidity or of others they have the answer, In the Lord have I put my trust; how say ye to my soul, Flee? Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen. — Alexander MacLaren

There can be no faith so feeble that Christ does not respond to it. — Alexander MacLaren

Grace gave Emma's arm a gentle squeeze and curved her mouth into a thoughtful smile. "That's what God does for its, honey; He takes its just as we are, no matter how sinful or vile. Nothing we do will ever make its worthy of Him, but that's the good news. We don't have to be worthy. Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for our sins when He died on the cross, so the worst is over. All that remains is for us to ask Him to forgive its and believe that He does. There's nothing more to it than that. — Sharlene MacLaren

Christ by His intercession is able to save thee beyond the horizon and largest compass of thy thoughts, even to the utmost. In danger Christ lashes us to Himself, as Alpine guides do when there is perilous ice to get over. — Alexander MacLaren

hearts here that love Jesus Christ and keep in unison with Him, and are sympathetic with His desires, will learn to know His will, and will re-echo the music that comes from Him. And if our supreme desire is to know what pleases Jesus Christ, depend upon it the desire will not be in vain, 'If any man wills to do His will he shall know of the doctrine.' Ninety per cent. of all our perplexities as to conduct come from our not having a pure and simple wish to do what is right in His sight, clearly supreme above all others. — Alexander MacLaren

Heaven is endless longing, accompanied with an endless fruition-a longing which is blessedness, a longing which is life. — Alexander MacLaren

Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act, an act of the whole nature.-Belief or unbelief is a test of a man's whole spiritual condition, because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience, as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it. — Alexander MacLaren

There is no long interval between the sense of thirst and the trickling of the stream over the parched lip; but ever it is flowing, flowing past us, and the desire is but the opening of the lips to receive the limpid, and life-giving waters. No one ever desired the grace of God, really and truly desired it, but just in proportion as he desired it, he got it; just in proportion as he thirsted, he was satisfied. — Alexander MacLaren

Let the current of your being set towards God, then your life will be filled and calmed by one master-passion which unites and stills the soul. — Alexander MacLaren

You cannot put patience and experience into a parenthesis, and, omitting them, bring hope out of tribulation. — Alexander MacLaren

We believe that the history of the world is but the history of His influence and that the center of the whole universe is the cross of Calvary. — Alexander MacLaren

It is not my strength that grows, so much as God's strength in me, which is given more abundantly as the days roll. It is so given on one condition. If my faith has laid hold of the infinite, the exhaustless, the immortal energy of God, unless there is something fearfully wrong about me, I shall be getting purer, nobler, wiser, more observant of His will; gentler, like Christ; every way fitter for His service, and for larger service, as the days increase. — Alexander MacLaren

If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether. — Alexander MacLaren

As in mysterious and transcendent union the Divine takes into itself the human in the person of Jesus, and eternity is blended with time; we, trusting Him, and yielding our hearts to Him, receive into our poor lives an incorruptible seed, and for us the soul-satisfying realities that abide forever mingle with and are reached through the shadows that pass away. — Alexander MacLaren

The gospel is not speculation but fact. It is truth, because it is the record of a person who is the Truth. — Alexander MacLaren