George MacDonald Quotes

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?... It is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doers to light... My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,' wailed Anne. 'You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.

I guess the biggest world difference you can make is in people's relations to their own emotions, 'cause emotions rule so much of our daily life, and I think that's where we work.

As a comedian, I think we all look for those areas where the truth diverts from what people are saying. That's why politics is such a rich area for us, because politicians make promises, and they don't keep them, and when we point out the difference, we get the laugh.

What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it.

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.

You assist an administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil administration never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good man will therefore resist an evil system or administration with his whole soul.

You get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right.

I get inspired with passion, I think. I get inspired by people who are just passionate, and it doesn't matter what they do or what they're passionate about.

I am not aware that payment, or even favors, however gracious, bind any man's soul and conscience in questions of highest morality and highest importance.

Somebody said to me the other day, 'You know, it's really senseless, what you're doing. There's always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you're just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].' My answer is, 'Okay, then, let's start with your grandchild. Don't buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don't take it to the hospital of it has an accident. It's against life-against humanity-to think that way.

I've decided to do it, for the pure and simple reason that I just think it's the right thing to do.

I have found that the more I get my ego out of a picture and the more I think about how can I serve other people instead of always thinking about me, the more miracles show up.

I encourage everyone I know that whether it be in their workplace, whether it be in a political arena or within their own families, to do what their gut tells them to do. And that involves calling it like they see it and tackling the tasks that are at hand and not worrying so much what other people are thinking or saying about them.

It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think I'm wrong. The number of people who thought Hitler was right did not make him right... Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?

I feel like thanking Paul Dacre every time, because the reason they ask me is because they think I've come through the other end with a pretty good reputation. Loads of people get a bad press but have a good reputation. [David] Beckham - think what he went through. [Bill] Clinton, likewise. You just have to be true to yourself.

There needs to be a public dawning - and it is beginning to dawn on some members of the public - that how science is practiced actually makes a difference in their lives. If evidence becomes optional, if ideological assertions or beliefs are just as good as scientifically vetted evidence, then their quality of life suffers. I think that's dawning on people. There's a level of concern unlike anything I've seen.

A curious reversal in the locus of moral concern has taken place: people feel responsible for everything except for what they do.

Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people?

Alas, 'tis force alone that can compel to virtuous actions a degenerate people.

It seems to be very hard for people to live with riddles or to let them live, although one would think that life is so full of riddles as it is that a few more things we cannot answer would make no difference. But perhaps it is just this that is so unendurable, that there are irrational things in our own psyche which upset the conscious mind in its illusory certainties by confronting it with the riddle of its existence.

The biggest thing is to continue to do what you do. A lot of people, when they get to a certain level, start thinking about it too much and they change what they do.

It is what it is but I do me and I think people respect that. They see me out in the hood by myself or with wifey and I don't have no bodyguards.