“A fairytale, like a butterfly or a bee, helps itself on all sides, sips at every wholesome flower, and spoils not one.”

— George MacDonald, The Fantastic Imagination, 1893

About George MacDonald

1824 – 1905

Scottish author and minister, known for fantasy novels and for the novel 'The Marquis of Lossie'.

“To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.”

“A true friend is forever a friend.”

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”