Elizabeth Goudge Quotes
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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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Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.
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Insufficient nourishment in the early morning leads to pessimism and doubts.
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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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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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Given belief in God, a good digestion and a mind in working order life's still a thing to be grateful for.
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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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The elements were "seeking" each other in rage and confusion, and in the fury of the conflict boastful man was utterly humiliated, sucked down, drowned.
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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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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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Shame could wrench just as fear did. Thinking how other men would have behaved in his place was the most searching form of humiliation that he knew; and he knew a good many.
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Reality as one knew it was what claimed one's allegiance. Deepening experience might change one's conception of it but until that happened the life one knew was the life one had to live.
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Sensible fathers and mothers, when their children marry, go back to the old days and renew their youth.
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In the old days he had clutched life with such violence that the juice of it ran out between his fingers and was lost, but now he would touch it delicately, thankful for the good and accepting the ills with patience.
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And the written words were footsteps, feet running hard to another person.
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So this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings.
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Someone once said to me,said Marguerite, that our home, our special country, is where we find liberation. I suppose she meant that it is where our souls find it easiest to escape from self, and it seem to me that it is that way with us when what is about us echoes the best that we are.
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Being ill makes you feel what well people call sentimental, but what you feel is nonetheless genuine whatever they call it.
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...those who break the law should be loved more and not less for their sin, for if we do not forgive then is sin added to sin and the end is death.
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Happy the man who lives long enough to acknowledge his ignorance.
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"Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own," said Mary. "I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it".
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Marriage is a very long process.
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Without faith your mind gets fouled. Look at Cervantes. He was a man of faith and nothing fouled Cervantes, not even war and slavery. He wrote the first part of Don Quixote in prison.
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There is always something particularly delightful about exceptions to a rule.