Orson Scott Card: Goodness

Orson Scott Card is American science fiction novelist. Explore interesting quotes on goodness.
Orson Scott Card: 1172 quotes16 likes

“If there's no place in the universe for a man to resist the thieves of freedom and still be called a good man, then I don't think there is any good or evil in the universe.”

Orson Scott Card

Treason (1988)

“Physically plain people are perfectly able to see physical beauty in others, while people who are morally maimed are blind to goodness and decency. They honestly think it doesn't exist.
Oh, they know it exists all right. They just never know which people have it.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

“You're the only one that I would be glad to be close to forever, because all your secrets are bright and good and I love you for them.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthfall (1995)

“I think that a good person can sometimes do wrong out of ignorance or weakness or wrong thinking, but when hard times come, the goodness wins out after all. And a bad person can often seem good and trustworthy for a long time, but when hard times come, the evil in him gets revealed.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 14.

“Men like Jackson were so upright and honest-seeming, but Hooch knew that there wasn’t no such thing as a good man, just a man who wasn’t bought yet, or wasn’t in deep enough trouble, or didn’t have the guts to reach out and take what he wanted. That’s all that virtue ever boiled down to, so far as Hooch ever saw in his life.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 1.

“By the time Verily was sixteen, a sturdy and rather good-looking young man of some education and impeccable manners, he had become a thoroughgoing skeptic. If the dogmas about witchery could be so hopelessly wrong, how could any of the teachings of the ministers be relied upon? It left Verily Cooper at loose ends, intellectually speaking, for all his teachers spoke as if religion were the cornerstone of all other learning, and yet all of Verily’s actual studies led him to the conclusion that sciences founded upon religion were uncertain at best, utterly bogus at worst.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 9.

“And he wanted a wife. He wanted to raise children. He wanted to prove that goodness wasn’t beaten into children, that fear was not the fount from which virtue flowed. He wanted to be able to gather his family in his arms and know that not one of them dreaded the sight of him, or felt the need to lie to him in order to have his love.”

Orson Scott Card

(Chapter reference needed).
The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995)

“What you are is a man who means to be good, and undo the bad he’s done, and that’s as good as any man ever gets.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 13.

“A dreamer, a good man, a kind man who cared less for his plan than for the people in it.”

Orson Scott Card Hart's Hope

Hart's Hope (1983)

“Wasn’t that their natural right, to know the truth so as to be able to let the truth lead them to do good or evil, as they chose?”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 17.

“Sometimes it felt to him as though he’s spent most of his life traveling, and never quite got to anywhere that mattered.
Then again, that might be as good a description of what life was supposed to be as anyone ever thought of. The only real destination was death, and our lives consisted of finding the most circuitous and pleasant path to get there.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 7 “Errand Boy” (p. 136).

“We've seen the worst that men can do, pa, and been the worst that men can be. But that don't mean that someday we won't see the best, too. And if we can never be perfect after this, well, we can still be pretty good, can't we?”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 14.

“Many a man isn't as good as his woman, but I never knew a husband who was better than his wife.”

Orson Scott Card book Saints

Saints (1983)

“Keep your freedom, keep your immortality, but somewhere along the line I hope you figure out what you're living forever for. What noble purpose you mean to achieve. Because you're no good to anyone here, not even yourselves.”

Orson Scott Card

Treason (1988)

“I will not be tamed, only persuaded. I will not be coerced or led blindly or tricked or bullied - I am willing only to be convinced. If you don't trust your own basic goodness enough to tell me what you're trying to do… Then you're confessing your own moral weakness and I'll never serve you.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Memory Of Earth (1992)

“Alvin wondered if it was true—if all men had evil in their hearts, and those men as were good, maybe they were simply the ones who controlled theirselves so well they could act contrary to their heart’s desire. But if that were so, then no man was good, not one.”

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 11.

“Keep me alive. Keep me alive long enough for me to conquer the animal within myself. Long enough for me to learn to partner myself with a woman who is better and stronger than me. Long enough for me to reconcile myself with my brothers. Long enough to be as good a man as my father, and as good as my mother, too.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, The Call Of Earth (1992)

“Sometimes those who care for the whole community must act in a way that harms the individual. For a good man it never becomes easy and he avoids it when he can; but when people need him to be harsh, he will be harsh indeed, and he won't shrink from it, he'll do it with his own hand and let it be known what he does.”

Orson Scott Card

Homecoming saga, Earthfall (1995)

“In the absence of understanding, that was a good a reason as any for living together and making babies and raising them up and throwing them out of the house and then going through the long slow decline together until one of them died and left the other alone again, understanding as little as ever about what their spouses really wanted, who they really were. Was that tragedy? Or was that comedy? Was there really any difference?”

Orson Scott Card Enchantment

Enchantment (1999)

““Hey, you’re getting to be almost worth how much it costs to feed you.”
“Good thing, ’cause I got no plan to eat less.””

Orson Scott Card

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 3 “Fever” (p. 48).