The collection / 58 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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02Undated

What is the scent of water?""Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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03Undated

Jean was visited by one of her rare moments of happiness, one of those moments when the goodness of God was so real to her that it was like taste and scent; the rough strong taste of honey in the comb and the scent of water. Her thoughts of God had a homeliness that at times seemed shocking, in spite of their power, which could rescue her from terror or evil with an ease that astonished her.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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04Undated

The very old and the very young have something in common that makes it right that they should be left alone together. Dawn and sunset see stars shining in a blue sky; but morning and midday and afternoon do not, poor things.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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05Undated

The sun is still there... even if clouds drift over it. Once you have experienced the reality of sunshine you may weep, but you will never feel ice about your heart again.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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06Undated

The years stretched before her, a long and dusty way, yet if she could walk humbly along it she might find that life, unfolding slowly, keeps its best secrets till the end.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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07Undated

One is seldom unchanged by the death of those one loves. It gives me a deeper knowledge of them, and so of oneself in regard to them.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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08Undated

...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.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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09Undated

...The simple little words came easily, fitting themselves to the tune that had come out of the harpsichord. It didn't seem to her that she made them up at all. It seemed to her that they flew in from the rose-garden, through the open window, like a lot of butterflies, poised themselves on the point of her pen, and fell off it on to the paper.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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10Undated

Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life...

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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11Undated

...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.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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12Undated

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.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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13Undated

She realized with deep respect that this woman had always done what she had to do and faced what she had to face. If many of her fears and burdens would have seemed unreal to another woman, there was nothing unreal about her courage.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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14Undated

Be at peace now and let the tide carry you into calm water. That is all you have to do for the moment. God bless you.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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15Undated

He supposed he was one of those unfortunates born with a great capacity for suffering.... He opened his eyes a moment and they were dark with fear, for only one race was run as yet and there might be many others.... Then his newborn courage came back to him and he accepted his suffering as the price he must pay for the gift of creation that was his. And suffering, he had discovered, could be the gateway to renewal, than which no more glorious experience can be man's on earth.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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16Undated

In what he suffered, as in all true suffering and in true joy, there was the quality of eternity. He could not believe it would ever end.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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17Undated

Joy being of God was a living thing, a fountain not a cistern, one of those divine things that are possessed only as they overflow and flow away, and not easily come by because it must break into human life through the hard crust of sin and contingency. Joy came now here, now there, was held and escaped.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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18Undated

For a few minutes the anxiety that tormented him had vanished, leaving his mind as serene as the beauty he looked at. Very lovely, he thought, are the sudden moments of relief that come in the midst of strain, those moments of forgetfulness when we are "teased out of thought" by a bird or a flower or the sight of old roofs in the sun; lovely though so transient, the reversal of those brief moments of misery that visit us even in the midst of joy.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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19Undated

...whatever happens I'll not be afraid again; for, when you've once pushed through the place of torment to the peace beyond, you know that you can do it again. You know there's a strength somewhere that you can call upon. You've confidence.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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20Undated

It was not the size of things that mattered but their perfection, it was not what one had that was important, but what one made.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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21Undated

Genius creates from the heart and when the artifact is broken so is the heart.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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22Undated

Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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23Undated

Water, wind and birdsong were the echoes in this quiet place of a great chiming symphony that was surging around the world. Knee-deep in grasses and moon daisies, Stella stood and listened, swaying a little as the flowers and trees were swaying, her spirit voice singing loudly, though her lips were still, and every pulse in her body beating its hammer strokes in time to the song.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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24Undated

Lovely phrases had lit candles in her mind, one after the other, till she felt intoxicated with the brightness.

Elizabeth Goudge / quote

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