Elizabeth Goudge Quotes
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Autumn days have a holiness that spring lacks ... They are like old serene saints for whom death has lost its terror.
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It was only in his rare moments of silence, when his face fell into repose and the laughter died out of his eyes and his full lips drooped one upon the other, that one observer in a thousand might have known him for a man who dared not think. In those moments he looked like a mangy, sad old lion looking out upon the splendor of the grand old days from behind the bars of his prison cell.
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If it were possible to escape from lonely experiences for a moment and stand back from the tree one would see the myriad bright worlds sparkling upon it. But only the greatest could do that. For all but the greatest their own experience was a prison house until the ending of the days. But one could know how bright was the light that carried all souls back to the light when for a moment one entered the world of a child.
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The perfect moment, once lost, is not easily found again.
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The scent of a flower is a very close and intimate thing, she thought. It can seem to be a part of your body and blood.
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...you don't have to know just what people are doing and feeling to be of assistance to them. Your own life seems to you like a very small lighted room, with great darkness all around it, and you can't see out into the darkness and know what is happening there. But light and warmth from your room can go out into the darkness if you don't have the windows selfishly curtained, keep a brave fire burning, and light all the happy candles you can.
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There was a leap of joy in him, like a flame lighting up in a dark lantern. At this moment he believed it was worth it. This moment of supreme beauty was worth all the wretchedness of the journey. It was always worth it. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It was the central truth of existence, and all men knew it, though they might not know that they knew it. Each man followed his own star through so much pain because he knew it, and at journey's end all the innumerable lights would glow into one.
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A close union with the earth seemed to involve one in unison with a good deal more than the earth.
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These black times go as they come and we do not know how they come or why they go. But we know that God controls them, as he controls the whole vast cobweb of the mystery of things.
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Genius creates from the heart and when men put love into their work there is power in it, there is a soul in the body.
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What is the distinguishing mark of an aristocrat?' she asked him suddenly.'Reverence,' he replied.
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He grinned at her, and she grinned at him, and it seemed to Maria that suddenly the sun came out.
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He was a convinced but hardworked rationalist, always hard at it re-convincing himself of his convictions.
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Those who have deeply suffered in some particular way are welded together in an understanding incomprehensible to those who have not so suffered.
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Fear is a lonely thing. Even those who love us best cannot get close to us when we are afraid.
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I mean, you may cause others a spot of bother by your weaknesses, perhaps, but coping with you may possibly increase their strength and sympathy. But if you sin deliberately, even if it seems only against yourself--well--you won't be the only one to suffer. You may even be the one who suffers least.
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Insufficient nourishment in the early morning leads to pessimism and doubts.
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...now her compassion had been pierced and set flowing; it felt as though her life's blood were running away.
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It's only the immortal thing that a man can be judged on, that bit of himself that he makes as he does the best he can with what fate handed out to him.
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She long ago accepted the fact that happiness is like, swallows in spring. It may come and nest under your eaves or it may not. You cannot command it.
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A man is not a different person just because he becomes aware. Oh I know it must seem like metamorphosis when the eyes of a blind man are opened, but he's the same man. We grow, mercifully, and growth is just awareness of more and more.
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If in this life only we have hope....." By God, that was true, too. This quickening divine power that he had experienced could not be confined to this world, for cruel, sordid, ugly, devilish can be this world, and by the nature of things that power could have neither source nor ending in it; only flow through it, around it, over it, under it, gathering up the gold into its eternal shining and burning the dross in its fire.
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Pride takes a lot of breaking.
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Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.