“That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good”
Aphorism 44
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel
Context: That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.
Original
Celui-là est bon qui fait du bien aux autres; s'il souffre pour le bien qu'il fait, il est très bon; s'il souffre de ceux à qui il a fait ce bien, il a une si grande bonté qu'elle ne peut être augmentée que dans le cas où ses souffrances viendraient à croître; et s'il en meurt, sa vertu ne saurait aller plus loin: elle est héroïque, elle est parfaite.
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel
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Jean de La Bruyère 65
17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696Related quotes
Book II, Chapter 5, "The Practical Conclusion"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 332
Source: Farnham's Freehold (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 115)
“A person who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”
Variant: A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.
Source: The Kite Runner
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 428
Sunni Hadith
“To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more”
Essay 2, Section 6
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Context: To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle which even the apes might subscribe; for it has been said that in devising bizarre cruelties they anticipate man and are, as it were his "prelude."
Quoted in The Observer [London] (6 December 1964).
General sources