William Ernest Hocking: Good

William Ernest Hocking was American philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on good.

William Ernest Hocking: 62 quotes0 likes

“A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will”

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XIV : The Need of an Absolute, p. 197.
Context: A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will--in its rudiments. There is solid satisfaction in knowing that the mere desire to get out of an old habit is a material advance upon the condition of submergence in that habit. The longest step toward cleanliness is made when one gains--nothing but dissatisfaction with dirt.

“Pure community is a matter of no interest to any will; but a community which pursues a common good is of supreme interest to all wills; and what we have here said is that whatever the nature of that common good … it must contain the development of individual powers, as a prior condition for all other goods.”

William Ernest Hocking

Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VII, Natural Right, § 35, p. 77.

“And indeed, no man has found his religion until he has found that for which he must sell his goods and his life.”

William Ernest Hocking

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XVI : The Original Sources of the Knowledge of God, p. 237.

“Without good-will, no man has any presumptive right, except the right or opportunity to change his will, so long as there is hope of it.”

William Ernest Hocking

Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VII, Natural Right, § 32, p. 73.

“Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished; the others can only be hurt.”

William Ernest Hocking

The Coming World Civilization (1956), p. 7.