Goodness
- An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.--Maurice Maeterlinck
- The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.--William Wordsworth
- Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.--Tyron Edwards
- But spirituality, it seems to me, when answering the question, "Why should I be good? Why should I care for others?" says, "Because that is the best, most fulfilling way to live" Whether or not you receive an award or a payment is incidental. You are good and kind and loving because it is right, even though it is difficult sometimes. It fulfills the highest law, to treat others as we wish to be treated.—-Philip Gulley ("Spirituality vs. Religion3")
- By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world… By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.--Albert Schweitzer
- Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil.--William James
- Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.--John Wesley
- Do your little bit of good where you care; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.--Desmond Tutu
- Each experience through which we pass operates ultimately for our good. This is a correct attitude to adopt and we must be able to see it in that light.--Raymond Holliwell
- "Everybody's got the seam of goodness in them, Kit," said Grandpa. "Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light."--David Almond
- Experience has convinced me that there is a thousand times more goodness, wisdom, and love in the world than men imagine.--Gehles
- The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.--George Eliot
- The first idea that the child must acquire in order to be actively disciplined is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.--Maria Montessori
- The forgiving state of mind is a magnetic power for attracting good.--Catherine Ponder
- Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life. Too many of us divide and dissipate our energies in debating actions which should be taken for granted.--Ralph W. Sockman
- A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.--Nelson Mandela
- The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.--Luke 6:45 (NIV)
- Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.--William Saroyan
- Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.--John Milton (Paradise Lost)
- Good things, when short, are twice as good.--Baltasar Gracian (The Art of Worldly Wisdom)
- Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.--James Allen
- Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward things we are. To be good is the great thing.--Edwin Hubbell Chapin
- Goodness is a gift from those who went before. Therefore, make things better for those who come after.--Arthur Dobrin
- Goodness is a process of becoming, not of being. What we do over and over again is what we become in the end.--Joan Chittister
- Goodness is love in action, love with its hand to the plow, love with the burden on its back, love following his footsteps who went about continually doing good.--James Hamilton
- Goodness is the only investment that never fails.--Henry David Thoreau
- Grace is not something outside or you.. In fact, your very desire for grace is due to grace that is already working in you.--Ramana Maharshi
- Grace is not something special; it is really universal; it is the only power for good there is, and all alike participate in its goodness…--Lakshmana Sarma
- The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident.--Charles Lamb
- He that does good to another does good also to himself.--Seneca
- How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.--William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)
- Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.--François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
- I cannot do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good I can do.--Jana Stanfield
- I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.--Stephan Grellet
- I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.--Anne Frank
- I think we can't go 'round measuring our goodness by what we don't do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.--Hugh O'Conor (Chocolat)
- Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.--Simone Weil
- In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are.--Robert Louis Stevenson
- In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.--Flora Edwards
- In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.--Deirdre Sullivan ("Always Go to the Funeral" in This I Believe ed. by Allison and Gediman)
- It is from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.--Maurice Maeterlinck (Wisdom and Desiny)
- It is not enough merely to exist. It's not enough to say, "I'm earning enough to support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good father, husband, churchgoer." That's all very well. But you must do something more. Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.--Albert Schweitzer
- It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.--Margaret Mead (Redbook, 1978)
- It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.--Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (Good Omens)
- It seems to me that we can never give up longing and wishing, while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.--George Eliot
- Never say anything to hurt anyone. Moreover . . . refrain from double talk, from shrewd and canny remarks that are designed to advance our interests at someone's disadvantage. We are to turn our back upon evil, and in every way possible, do good, help people and bring blessings into their lives.--Norman Vincent Peale
- No amount of good deeds can make us good persons. We must be good before we can do good.--Chester A. Pennington
- No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.--John Greenleaf Whittier
- No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.--Alan Alda
- Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.--Mahatma Gandhi
- Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.--Nikola Tesla
- 1. People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered (including me). Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the littlest people with the littlest ideas. Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them. Help them anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth. Give the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.-Kent M. Keith
- Pessimism, cynicism, skepticism: these are the first barriers to peace. We must resist the temptation to feel powerless. ... We must look for the goodness in people, and trust that it still exists even when we can’t see it.--Samuel Saxton ("Midnight in Nazareth")
- Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence.--Mahatma Gandhi
- The purpose of all major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.--Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama)
- That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not.--James K. Geiblemen
- There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.--Montaigne ("Of Repentance" Essays)
- This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.--Peace Pilgrim
- Through each passage and each season, may you trust the goodness f life.--Charlene Costanzo
- To become a good man, one must have faithful friends, or outright enemies.--Napoleon I
- To view your life as blessed does not require you to deny your pain. It simply demands a more complicated vision, one in which a condition or event is not either good or bad but is, rather, both good and bad, not sequentially, but simultaneously.--Nancy Mairs
- True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.--Albert Einstein
- We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.--Marcus Aurelius
- When "Do no Evil" has been understood,
Then learn the harder, braver rule, "Do Good."--Arthur Guiterman ("Of Duty" A Poet's Proverbs)
- When we become isolated, we are prone to being damaged; our minds lose their flexibility and natural kindness; we become vulnerable to fear and negativity. The sense of belonging keeps you in balance amidst the inner and outer immensities. The ancient and eternal values of human life - truth, unity, goodness, justice, beauty, and love are all statements of belonging; they are also the secret intention and dream of human longing. --John O'Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)
- When you expect good, it's available constantly, and it makes itself a reality in your life.--Alfre Woodard
- Yes, people sometimes do horrible things, and we can speculate about why they do them until we run out of words and sanity. But evil only prevails when we mistake it for the norm. There is so much goodness in the world – all we have to do is remind one another of it, show up for it, and refuse to leave.--Maria Popova ("Some Thoughts on Hope, Cynicism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves")
- Your actions in passing, pass not away, for every good work is a grain of seed for eternal life.--St. Bernard of Clairvaux
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