Quotes from The Princess and the Goblin

George MacDonald ·  241 pages

Rating: (25K votes)


“Seeing is not believing - it is only seeing.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.'
What is that, grandmother?'
To understand other people.'
Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin



“...it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“But in the meantime, you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary."
"What is that, grandmother?"
"To understand other people.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“That's all nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you mean."
"Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin



"Then what do you see?" asked Irene, who perceived at once that for her not to believe him was at least as bad as for him not to believe her.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.' So you see there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have been known in the world's history.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“Seeing is not believing—it is only seeing.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin



“We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' 'What is that, grandmother?' 'To understand other people.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“But in the meantime you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“Seeing is not believing, it is only seeing,”
George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin



“es tan tonta de las personas a imaginar que la vejez significa tortuosidad y witheredness y debilidad y palos y espectáculos y el reumatismo y el olvido! Es tan tonto! La vejez no tiene nada que ver con todo eso. La vejez derecho significa la fuerza y ​​la belleza y la alegría y el coraje y los ojos claros y fuertes extremidades sin dolor.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


“answer when she knocked at length at the door of the workroom,”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin


About the author

George MacDonald
Born place: in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Born date December 10, 1824
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“People who read books," he went on, "tend to be dispensable. Extremely.”
― Ninni Holmqvist, quote from The Unit


“Only the French, I thought, could attain orgasm by listening to themselves. It was self-inflicted oral sex. A DIY blowjob.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde


“They never lost their way or seemed even momentarily uncertain of their location. They traveled narrow paths cut through tuckamore and bog or took shortcuts along the shoreline, chancing the unpredictable sea ice. Every hill and pond and stand of trees, every meadow and droke for miles was named and catalogued in their heads. At night they navigated by the moon and stars or by counting outcrops and valleys or by the smell of spruce and salt water and wood smoke. It seemed to Newman they had an additional sense lost to modern men for lack of use.”
― Michael Crummey, quote from Galore


“Such is the tragedy of girls and women who by the strictures of their upbringing and culture cannot own up to their body's desires, even to themselves.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, quote from Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations


“Before drawing any affirmative conclusions let us first note the absence of the concept of imitation as a general pastoral or moral guideline. There is in the New Testament no Franciscan glorification of barefoot itinerancy. Even when Paul argues the case for celibacy, it does not occur to him to appeal to the example of Jesus. Even when Paul explains his own predilection for self-support there is no appeal to Jesus' years of village artisan. Even when the Apostle argues strongly the case for his teaching authority, there is no appeal to the rabbinic ministry of Jesus. Jesus' trade as a carpenter, his association with fishermen, and his choice of illustrations from the life of the sower and the shepherd have through Christian history given momentum to the romantic glorification of the handcrafts and the rural life; but there is none of this in the New Testament, which testifies throughout to the life and mission of a church going intentionally into the cities in full knowledge of the conflicts which awaited here there. That the concept of imitation is not applied by the New Testament at some of those points where Franciscan and romantic devotion has tried most piously to apply it, is all the more demonstration of how fundamental the thought of participation in the suffering of Christ is when the New Testament church sees it as guiding and explaining her attitude to the powers of the world. Only at one point, only on one subject - but then consistently, universally - is Jesus our example: in his cross.”
― John Howard Yoder, quote from The Politics of Jesus


Interesting books

The Stories of Eva Luna
(14.1K)
The Stories of Eva L...
by Isabel Allende
Trunk Music
(43.3K)
Trunk Music
by Michael Connelly
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
(15.9K)
How to Read Literatu...
by Thomas C. Foster
Story of O
(14.9K)
Story of O
by Pauline Réage
Savage Thunder
(5.3K)
Savage Thunder
by Johanna Lindsey
Love's Long Journey
(9.3K)
Love's Long Journey
by Janette Oke

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.