The White Witch Quotes

“We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear," he said. "Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“she had long accepted the fact
that happiness is like swallows in
Spring. It may come and nest under
your eaves or it may not. You cannot
command it. When you expect to be
happy you are not, when you don't
expect to be happy there's suddenly
Easter in your soul, though it be
midwinter.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“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, The White Witch

“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, The White Witch

“...there began to come to her a first dim realization of God's humility. Rejected by the proud in His own right by what humble means He chose to succor them; through the spirit of a child, a poor gypsy or an old man, by a song perhaps, or even it might be by the fall of a leaf or the scent of a flower. For His infinite and humble patience nothing was too small to advance His purpose of salvation and eternity was not too long for its accomplishment.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“He had discovered that the choice between self-love or love of something other than self offers no escape from suffering either way, it is merely a choice between two woundings, of the pride or of the heart.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“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, The White Witch

“...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, The White Witch

“I loathe, detest, hate and abominate the block, the gibbet, the rack, the pillory and the faggots with equal passion," said the old man vehemently. "Not only are they devilishly cruel but they are not even common sense. They do not lesson the evil in the world, they increase it, by making those who handle these cruelties as wicked as those who suffer them. No, I'm wrong, more wicked, for there is always some expiation made in the endurance of suffering and none at all in the infliction of it.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“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, The White Witch

“In moments of exaltation one expressed sentiments that outstripped one's spiritual capabilities by a vast span; and she knew well that unless God is sought for Himself alone, with a selflessness of which she was at present incapable, He is not to be found.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“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, The White Witch

“Ah, that was the hardest thing to relinquish! Vigor of mind. The material things were not hard to give up, but memory, intellect, even perhaps at last the power to pray, those most precious treasures that had been symbolized by the books upon his shelves, from these it would be hard to part. Being human, he was feeling slightly sorry for himself at the moment and he found himself praying that he might never part from them, that he might die before that final stripping. Then, as he turned north at the corner of the lane and the cold wind struck him, he remembered the season. Christmas Eve. The Child in the manger had not only stripped Himself of the glory of heaven but of His wisdom too. The doing of the will of God had caused Him to lie there possessing neither memory, intellect nor the power to pray.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“I mean our time of judgment, yours and mine. These scourges that come upon us, wars and disasters of all sorts, they’re the retribution that the sin of the world pulls down upon itself and collectively we’re all guilty, though individually we may be innocent. Men choose one side or the other, making the best choice that they can with the knowledge that they have. Yet they know little and the turns and twists of war are incalculable. They may fight for a righteous cause and yet at the end of it all have become as evil as their enemies, or they may in error espouse an evil cause and in defense of it grow better men than they were before. And so the one war becomes each man’s private war, fought out within his own nature. In the last resort that’s what matters to him, Froniga. In the testing of the times did he win or lose his soul? That’s his judgment.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

“Reaching for air and light the beech trees had grown very tall. One’s eyes traveled up and up the immense height of the silver trunks, past the various platforms of green leaves to where the blue of the upper air showed through them. The final platforms were so high that the blue of the blue-green pattern seemed no further away in space than the green; but one tree had decided to be content with a lowly position, had grown only a short height on a slender silver stem and then spread out her arms and wings like a dancing fairy. Below on the floor of the wood the colors showed jewel-bright above the warm russet of the beechmast. The cushions of moss about the roots of the trees were emerald and there were clumps of small bright purple toadstools, and others rose-colored on top and quilted white satin underneath.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch