The Marquis of Lossie Quotes

“As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie

“I fear you will never arrive at an understanding of God so long as you cannot bring yourself to see the good that often comes as a result of pain. For there is nothing, from the lowest, weakest tone of suffering to the loftiest acme of pain, to which God does not respond. There is nothing in all the universe which does not in some way vibrate within the heart of God. No creature suffers alone; He suffers with His creatures and through it is in the process of bringing His sons and daughters through the cleansing and glorifying fires, without which the created cannot be made the very children of God, partakers of the divine nature and peace.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is false is no source of might. It is the truth shining from behind that gives the strength to disbelieve. ”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie

“Don't you sometimes find it hard to remember God all through your work?" asked Clementina.

"I don't try to consciously remember Him every moment. For He is in everything, whether I am thinking of it or not. When I go fishing, I go to catch God's fish. When I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild creatures. When I read the Bible or Shakespeare, I am listening to the word of God, uttered in each after its own kind. When the wind blows on my face, it is God's wind.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“I do believe that when a man confesses to his neighbor and says he's sorry, he thinks more of him than he did before. You see, we all know we have done wrong, but we haven't usually confessed it. And it's a funny thing, but when the time comes when there's something he needs to repent of himself, he hesitates for fear of the shame of having to confess it. To me the shame lies in not confessing after you know you're in the wrong.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“It is just the old way--that of obedience. If you have ever seen the Lord, if only from afar--if you have any vaguest suspicion that the Jew Jesus, who professed to have come from God, was a better man, a different man--one of your first duties must be to open your ears to His words and see whether they seem to you to be true. Then, if they do, to obey them with your whole strength and might. This is the way of life, which will lead a man out of its miseries into life indeed.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“Understanding is the reward of obedience. Obedience is the key to every door. 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.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“Our Lord speaks of many coming up to His door confident of admission, whom He yet sends away. Faith is obedience, not confidence.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“I would I were in the kingdom of heaven if it be as you and Mr. Graham take it for!" said Clementina.

"You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn't wish it to be such as it is."

"Can one be in it and yet seem to himself to be out of it. Malcolm?"

"So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one might well imagine it the other way around with some.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“It is not at all a fit place for you," said Clementina.

"Gently, my lady. It is a greater than thou that sets the bounds of my habitation. Perhaps He may give me a palace one day. But the Father has decreed for His children that they shall know the thing that is neither their ideal nor His. All in His time, my lady. He has much to teach us.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis' Secret

“But how do you know that [Christianity] was not all a delusion—the product of your own fervid imagination? Do not mistake me; I want to find it true.”

“It is a right and honest question, my lady. I will tell you. Not to mention the conviction which a truth beheld must carry with itself and concerning which there can be no argument either with him who does or him who does not see it, this experience goes far with me, and would with you if you had it, as you may—namely, that all my difficulties and confusions have gone on clearing themselves up ever since I set out to walk in that way.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie

“But how do you know that [your faith] was not all a delusion—the product of your own fervid imagination? Do not mistake me; I want to find it true.”

“It is a right and honest question, my lady. I will tell you. Not to mention the conviction which a truth beheld must carry with itself...this experience goes far with me...namely, that all my difficulties and confusions have gone on clearing themselves up ever since I set out to walk in that way. My consciousness of life is threefold what it was; my perception of what is lovely around me, and my delight in it, threefold; my power of understanding things and of ordering my way, threefold also; the same with my hope and my courage, my love to my kind, my power of forgiveness. In short, I cannot but believe that my whole being and its whole world are in process of rectification for me. Is not that something to set against the doubt born of the eye and ear, and the questions of an intellect that can neither grasp nor disprove? I say nothing of better things still.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie

“Age is not all decay: it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie

“The second childhood, at which the fool jeers, is the better, the truer, the fuller childhood, growing strong to cast off altogether, with the husk of its own enveloping age, that of its family, its country, its world as well. Age is not all decay. It is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.”
― George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie