“I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about practice. The word doctrine, as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory.”

— George MacDonald

From a letter to his father, quoted in George MacDonald and His Wife (1924) by Greville MacDonald
Context: I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about practice. The word doctrine, as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory. I preached a sermon about this. We are far too anxious to be definite and to have finished, well-polished, sharp-edged systems — forgetting that the more perfect a theory about the infinite, the surer it is to be wrong, the more impossible it is to be right.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about pract…" by George MacDonald?

George MacDonald127

Scottish journalist, novelist 1824–1905

Related quotes

“The fundamental doctrines of motion have [herein]… been more immediately referred to axioms simply mathematical than has hitherto been usual; and the application of these doctrines to practical purposes has [herein]… been facilitated.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface (March 30, 1807)
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

“People who take things too literally don't get much of anything from my teaching. By never saying anything I mean, I say a great deal. I never mean anything I say under oath. I never mean exactly what I say. Not even this. You have to read between the words.”

John Sloan (1871–1951) American painter

In John Sloan on Drawing and Painting. Mineola NY: Dover Publications, 2000. Originally published in 1939 as The Gist of Art, p. 7.
The Gist of Art (1939)

“I care nothing for Free Speech in and by itself. All of us place too much value on the power of the printed word and the power of the spoken word. We read too much. We listen too much. We live too little. We act too little…. I speak to you by my actions past and present. I have been gagged, I have been been suppressed, I have have been hauled off to jail. Yet every time, more people ave listened to me, more have protested, more have lifted their voices, more have been responded with courage and bravery…. As a propagandist I see immense advantaged in being gagged. It silences me, but it makes millions of others talk about me, and the cause in which I live.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Ford Hall Forum Boston Speech, Woman Rebel, The Margaret Sanger Story, Peter Bagge.

“I love to deal with doctrines and events. The contests of men about men I greatly dislike.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Diary (14 March 1881)
1880s

“People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

“People are very much wrought up about the Communist bugaboo... the country is perfectly safe so far as Communism is concerned—we have too many sane people.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Letter to George H. Earle, former governor of Pennsylvania (received 28 February 1947); reported in The New York Times (3 April 1947), p. 17, quoting Earle.
Source: [McCullough, David G., Truman, 2003, Simon & Schuster, 978-0-7432-6029-9, 655, 869432463]