Virtues

"I longed with all my soul to be good, but I was young; I had passions and I was alone, completely alone in my search for goodness. Every time I tried to express my innermost desires—a wish to be morally good—I met with contempt and scorn, and as soon as I gave in to vile passions I was praised and encouraged. Ambition, lust for power, self-interest, lechery, pride, anger, revenge, were all respected qualities. As I yielded to these passions I became like my elders and I felt that they were pleased with me."

"To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them."

"Every person has only one purpose: to find perfection in goodness. Therefore, only that knowledge is necessary which leads to this."

"If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect."

"One may slain every goodness and yet escape, but no escape for one who slain gratitude."

"The touchstone of goodness is to own one's defeat even to inferiors."

"It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump."

"For he that is a good man, is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called."

"Nothing can harm a good man, either in life or after death."

"People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."

"It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good. Guarantee a man's goodness and his liberty will take care of itself. To guarantee his freedom on condition that you approve of his moral character is formally to abolish all freedom whatsoever, as every man's liberty is at the mercy of a moral indictment which any fool can trump up against everyone who violates custom, whether as a prophet or as a rascal."

"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

"Nec multis verbis nec circumitu longo, quod sit summum bonum, colliges1; digito, ut ita dicam, demonstrandum est nec in multa spargendum. Quid enim ad rem pertinet in particulas illud diducere, cum possis dicere: summum bonum est, quod honestum est? Et quod magis admireris: unum bonum est, quod honestum est, cetera falsa et bona sunt. Hoc si persuaseris tibi et virtutem adamaveris, amare enim parum est, quicquid illa contigerit, id tibi, qualecumque aliis videbitur, faustum felixque erit. Et torqueri, si modo iacueris ipso torquente securior, et aegrotare, si non male dixeris fortunae, si non cesseris morbo, omnia denique, quae ceteris videntur mala, et mansuescent et in bonum abibunt, si super illa eminueris."

"Is the reward for good (anything) but good?"

"But none is granted it except those who are patient, and none is granted it except one having a great portion (of good)."

"When at eventide noble steeds swift of foot were displayed before him, he said: "I have loved the love of good things over the remembrance of my Lord, until (the sun) was taken behind the veil""

"Indeed, God is with those who fear Him and those who are doers of good."

"And spend in the way of God and do not throw (yourselves) with your (own) hands into destruction (by refraining). And do good; Indeed, God loves the doers of good."

"The more skillfully the language of goodness is assumed, the greater the depravity."

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

"Forgetful of all he had written and spoken Antiochus was making preparations for war with Ptolemy, so that what Simonides said seems to be very true: "It is hard to be good." It is indeed easy to be disposed to act honourably and to strive to do so up to a certain point, but to be consistent and under every circumstance to be steadfast in our purpose, esteeming nothing to be of higher importance than justice and honour, is difficult."

"Nor is it a matter for wonder that the good do not appear herded in great thongs. First because specimens of great goodness are rare, secondly, because they avoid the great crowd of the more thoughtless and keep themselves at leisure for the contemplation of what nature has to show."

"He that does good for good's sake seeks neither praise nor reward, though sure of both at last."

"We care so little of other people that even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God."

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

"All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of goodness."

"Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely. —saw, and pined his loss."

"His irresolution was based on a fundamental human peculiarity—he wanted to be a good man, but what is good?"

"Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger — according to the way you react to it."

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

"Good can be done by the bad — but the good alone can be good."

"Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good."

"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident."

"We set ourselves up as arbiters of what is good when often our standards of goodness are driven by narrow interests, by what we want."

"It is quite natural that in the modern drama the bad is always represented by the most shining talents; the good, the upright, by a grocer's clerk. The spectators find this a matter of course and learn from the play what they knew beforehand, that it is far beneath their dignity to be put in the same class with a grocer's clerk."

"Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow."

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness 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."

"Only the mediocre are always at their best."

"The desire of the will is not satisfied by any good, as long as we believe that there is yet another beyond it. Therefore, the will is satisfied only by that one good beyond which there is no further good. What can this good be except the boundless God?"

"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist ... must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness."

"Only those few people who practice it believe in goodness."

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

"Today I didn't even have to use my A.K. I got to say it was a good day."

"No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good."

"How many simple pleasures I denied myself, because I thought that's what goodness was. How stupid that it took me until the end of the world to realize it was something else entirely."

"Most people are bad; if they are strong they take from the weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad."

"He who so interprets the supreme good as to disjoin it from virtue, and measures it by his own convenience, and not by the standard of right,—he, I say, if he be consistent with himself, and be not sometimes overcome by natural goodness, can cultivate neither friendship, nor justice, nor generosity."

"Can one desire too much of a good thing?"

"Goodness is always an asset. A man who is straight, friendly and useful may never be famous, but he is respected and liked by all who know him. He has laid a sound foundation for success and he will have a worthwhile life."