George MacDonald

New posts are at https://www.newhighchurch.com/s/georgemacdonald

[georgemacdonald]

FYI, new quotes and posts are being made at www.newhighchurch.com/s/georgemacdonald

[georgemacdonald]

What would you do with the pretended suicides?’ ‘Whip them, for trifling with and trading upon the feelings of their kind.’ ‘Then you would drive them to suicide in earnest.’ 'Then they might be worth something, which they were not before.’ 'We are a great deal too humane for that now-a-days, I fear. We don’t like hurting people.’ 'No. We are infested with a philanthropy which is the offspring of our mammon-worship. But surely our tender mercies are cruel. We don’t like to hang people, however unfit they may be to live amongst their fellows. A weakling pity will petition for the life of the worst murderer—but for what? To keep him alive in a confinement as like their notion of hell as they dare to make it—namely, a place whence all the sweet visitings of the grace of God are withdrawn, and the man has not a chance, so to speak, of growing better. In this hell of theirs they will even pamper his beastly body.’

Robert Falconer, George MacDonald

[neovictorian]

[georgemacdonald]

from The Golden Key, by George MacDonald (Illustration by Craig Yoe, via Amazon Book Preview)

[triadic]

It is a great privilege to be poor, Peter—one that no man ever coveted, and but a very few have sought to retain, but one that yet many have learned to prize. You must not mistake, however, and imagine it a virtue; it is but a privilege, and one also that, like other privileges, may be terribly misused.

The Princess in The Princess and Curdie, George MacDonald (via triadic)

[intheheatherbright]

George Macdonald, The Princess and Curdie, illustrated by Will Nickless (London: Collins, no date   [1883].

[georgemacdonald]

One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

George MacDonald

[hulga-joy]

“Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful 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.”

— “Phantastes,” by George MacDonald (via hilaryshawm-blog-blog)

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

George MacDonald, from “The Complete Poems & Fairytales,” wr. c. 1905

[georgemacdonald]

[neovictorian]

Sun & Moon by Timbre

[georgemacdonald]

Sun & Moon is the exploration of an idea: no art exists on its own. Art always influences art. This album explores the deep intrinsic relationship between popular music and classical music. “Sun” features music written and performed by my band, while “Moon” features classical music I have written for solo harp, harp & oboe, orchestra, and choir. Playing with the ideas of reflection, shadow, light, and darkness, the two halves of Sun & Moon reflect one another, mirroring the relationship between these two art forms. Many of the musical themes pass back and forth between the two sides. A four-note motif begins “Sunrise” and ends “Sunset”, representing the space between light and dark, where everything blends together. This motif can be heard throughout both sides of the album, constantly blurring the thin separation between them. With Sun & Moon I strive to paint vividly with the light, the joy, the passion of modern commercial music, and the darkness, depth, and richness of classical music, and show that together they can communicate beauty in greater depths than either can alone. My hope is that through experiencing these two languages of art, listeners will have a new, deep, and visceral experience of beauty, for beauty is more than an idea, but is a reality that is meant to be deeply known and experienced. -Timbre “Your eyes, they are so black. Darkness can’t see, of course. I will be your eyes, and teach you to see.” - The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris, George MacDonald 

[r1verdaughter]

“She does not belong by rights to this world at all, but to some other planet, probably Mercury. Her proclivity to her true sphere destroys all the natural influence which this orb would otherwise possess over her corporeal frame. She cares for nothing here. There is no relation between her and this world.”

— George MacDonald, The Light Princess  (via adorleehaze)

[georgemacdonald]

ed- this is not the perspective of MacDonald; these are words through Kopy-Keck the spiritualist as a comedic foil to Hum-Drum the materialist, both of which are foil to the actual solution.

Kopy-Keck resumes: ""She must therefore be taught, by the sternest compulsion, to take an interest in the earth as the earth. She must study every department of its history--its animal history; its vegetable history; its mineral history; its social history; its moral history; its political history, its scientific history; its literary history; its musical history; its artistical history; above all, its metaphysical history. She must begin with the Chinese dynasty and end with Japan. But first of all she must study geology, and especially the history of the extinct races of animals-their natures, their habits, their loves, their hates, their revenges. She must--"

Which of course does not solve anything for a girl who has lost her gravity.

[georgemacdonald]

"But, sir, isn't death a dreadful thing?" asked Malcolm.

"That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread. But if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendor - a splendor probably too keen for our eyes to receive."

"But there's the dying itself; isn't that fearsome? It's that I would be afraid of."

"I don't see why it should be. It's the lack a of God that makes it dreadful, and you would be greatly to blame for that, Malcolm, if you hadn't found your God by the time you had to die."

Malcolm, by George MacDonald

[helpingthingsgrow]

“We are all very anxious to be understood, & it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.’ What is that, grandmother?’ To understand other people.’ Yes, I must be fair - for if I’m not fair to other people, I’m not worth being understood myself. I see.” -George McDonald

[georgemacdonald]

Did you know? C.S. Lewis never actually said the line, "You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” We get a lot of questions about where to find Lewis quotes, and the source of this one is frequently asked for, with good reason! A very similar quote can be found instead in Walter Miller, Jr.'s famous sci-fi novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. In part III, the Abbot Zerchi says, "You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily." The Doctor in dialogue with the Abbot calls this a "semantic confusion." Lewis greatly enjoyed A Canticle for Leibowitz, calling it a "major work," but he did not take this line from it. In fact, the quote can be found even earlier than that. In 1892, a piece was published in the British Friend, a Quaker magazine, which attributed the line to George MacDonald: "'Never tell a child you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body." Lewis, of course, had great reverence for MacDonald, so perhaps this explains how the famous saying became attributed to him.

C.S. Lewis Foundation

[thoughtkick]

“Never tell a child ‘you have a soul.’ Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.”

— George MacDonald

[thebeautifulwordlist]

Via Dolorosa

Noun

[vy/vee-uh dol-uh-ro-suh]

1. a distressing journey or experience.

Origin: From the Latin word via dolōrōsa literally, sorrowful road

“There was no moon; nothing but the gas-lamps lighted Clare’s Via dolorosa.” - George MacDonald, A Rough Shaking

[pathofregeneration]

Life is measured by intensity, not by dial, dropping sand or watch.

George MacDonald (via pathofregeneration)