Quotes about good
page 9

“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: The Personal Notebooks Of Thomas Hardy

“He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest — he had seen beautiful things and horrible things — but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.”

Michael Ende book The Neverending Story

Source: The Neverending Story

Beauty

“You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you’ve done nothing good for yourself. That’s the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished.”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Source: The Circle

Hate, Feeling

“Investigation?" Isabelle laughed. "Now we're detectives? Maybe we should all have code names."
"Good idea," said Jace. "I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Idea

“It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”

Henry Fielding book The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Source: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Men

“Stephanie had no problem doing what she
was told, just so long as she was given a good reason why she
should.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Problem

“I detect
More good than evil in humanity.
Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes,
And men grow better as the world grows old.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Optimism
Poetry quotes, Poems of Pleasure (1900)
Context: I find a rapture linked with each despair,
Well worth the price of anguish. I detect
More good than evil in humanity.
Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes,
And men grow better as the world grows old.

Love, Men, Hate, World

“Nature is not primarily functional. It is primarily beautiful. Stop for a moment and let that sink in. We’re so used to evaluating everything (and everyone) by their usefulness that this thought will take a minute or two to begin to dawn on us. Nature is not primarily functional. It is primarily beautiful. Which is to say, beauty is in and of itself a great and glorious good, something we need in large and daily doses.”

Stasi Eldredge

Source: Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul

Beauty, Nature

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Truth, Way

“Bursar?"
"Yes, Archchancellor?"
"You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?"
"Me? No, Archchancellor."
"Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Secret, Idea

“good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere”

Helen Gurley Brown (1922–2012) American author, editor, publisher, and businesswoman

Girl, For women

“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

“It is better to be beautiful then to be good, but it is better to be good then to be ugly.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.

Beauty

“The way to get rid of darkness is with light; the way to overcome cold is with heat; the way to overcome the negative thought is to substitute the good thought. Affirm the good, and the bad will vanish."

- The power of your subconcious mind”

Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Source: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Way, Light

“If you ever wonder whether or not someone is too good for you, I'd advise going through their trash. Really. No one looks superior after that.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.”

John Fowles (1926–2005) British writer

Courage, Evil

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Fight

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

“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 book Kit's Wilderness

Source: Kit's Wilderness

Light

“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Variant: It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Source: Discourse on Method

“Evil prevails when good people do nothing.”

Erin Gruwell book The Freedom Writers Diary

Source: The Freedom Writers Diary

People, Evil

“Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weakens and defeats you.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

Source: The Art of Peace (1992)

Heart

“And yet women-good women--frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

Women, Soul

“The bad part is life continues. The good part is that the pain goes away.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: The Devil's Web

Life, Pain, Parting

“Self-respect. It would make me lovable. And it's the secret to good sex.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

Secret, Sex

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life, Life

“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Time

“The longer the trial to which God subjects you, the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of the trial and in the exaltation after the combat.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

God, Time

“Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

Life, Idea, Time

“You cannot be the good all the time — sometimes it is necessary to get angry.
[Vincent Van Gogh]”

Irving Stone book Lust for Life

Source: Lust for Life

Time

“Good health is the best weapon against religion. Healthy bodies and healthy minds have never been shaken by religious fears.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: Tears and Saints (1937)

Health, Fear, Religion

“I see evil when I look in my shaving mirror. It is, philosophically, present everywhere in the universe in order, apparently, to highlight the existence of good. I think there is more to this theory, but I tend to burst out laughing at this point.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Thinking, Universe, Evil

“Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead.”

Salman Rushdie book The Enchantress of Florence

Source: The Enchantress of Florence

Life, People, Time, Dead

“do you think it is
better to be clever than to be good?”
“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for
nothing unless you are clever.”

Henry James book Washington Square

Source: Washington Square

Thinking

“Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

God

“You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

LSD - Terence Mckenna - The Purpose Of Psychedelics http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=27759640 <br class="br">Context: My notion of what the psychedelic experience is, for us, that we each must become like fishermen, and go out on to the dark ocean of mind, and let our nets down into that sea. And what you're after is not some behemoth, that will tear through your nets, follow them and drag you in your little boat, you know, into the abyss, nor are what we're looking for a bunch of sardines that can slip through your net and disappear. Ideas like, "Have you ever noticed that your little finger exactly fits your nostril?", and stuff like that. What we are looking for are middle-size ideas, that are not so small that they are trivial, and not so large that they're incomprehensible. Middle-size ideas we can wrestle into our boat and take back to the folks on shore, and have fish dinner. And every one of us when we go into the psychedelic state, this is what we should be looking for. It's not for your elucidation, it's not part of your self-directed psychotherapy. You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is in danger by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness. And so to whatever degree any one of us can bring back a small piece of the picture and contribute it to the building of the new paradigm, then we participate in the redemption of the human spirit, and that after all is what it's really all about.

World, Idea

“Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or endeavoring something for the public good.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Reading

“Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Love

“Am going to cross Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the South Sea islands were peopled from Peru. Will you come? I guarantee nothing but a free trip to Peru and the South Sea islands and back, but you will find good use for your technical abilities on the voyage. Reply at once.'

Next day the following telegram arrived from Torstein:

COMING. TORSTEIN.”

Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer

People, Support, Sea

“As you go through life's rich tapestry, you realize that most people you meet aren't fit to shine your shoes. It's a sad fact, but it's true. A good friend is someone who'd hide you if you were on the run for murder. How many of them do you know?”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Life, People, Sadness, Shoe

“One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Books

“My cat is not insane, she's just a really good actress.”

P. C. Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Cats

“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Truth

“Mindfulness should guide all your actions and your spiritual endeavors. Whatever you do, always apply three essential points: undertake the action with the intention of doing so for the good of all beings; execute it with perfect concentration, free of attachment to concepts of subject, object, and action; and, finally, dedicate the merit you have created to the enlightenment of all beings.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Perfection

“I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life energy surges hotly through him, and delight, and appetite. How good to be in a body - even this old beat-up carcass - that still has warm blood and live semen and rich marrow and wholesome flesh!”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

Life

“What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.”

Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books

Books, Feeling

“Many a man fails to become a thinker only because his memory is too good.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Mancher wird nur deshalb kein Denker, weil sein Gedächtnis zu gut ist.
II.122
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Memory

“Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

People, Evil

“Many of us lead family lives. At most, the members of a family stay together for the duration of a lifetime, often much less. While that fleeting moment of being together still lasts, we should try to remain in perfect harmony with each other, while observing the Dharma as much as possible. Night and day, let us turn our minds toward goodness, love, and compassion.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Love, Family, Perfection, Night

“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Words on being presented with a Bible, as reported in the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle (8 September 1864)
1860s

God, Books, World, Communication

“Where I come from," said Archie, "a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her."
"Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean," said Samad tersely, "that it is a good idea.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

Girl, Idea

“All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth, Sense

“Our body begins to destroy itself from the moment it is born. We are fragile. We’re creatures of passage. All that is left of us are our actions, the good or the evil we do to our fellow humans”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book Marina

Source: Marina

Evil

“Yes, if you happen to be interested in philosophy and good at it, but not otherwise – but so does bricklaying. Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

When asked "Does philosophy contribute to happiness?" (SHM 76), as quoted in The quotable Bertrand Russell (1993), p. 149
Attributed from posthumous publications

Happiness

“What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 54
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Bee

“You don’t always win your battles, but it’s good to know you fought”

Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American actress, model

“All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

People, Music

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Death, People, Fools

“Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: One Way Street And Other Writings

Music

“There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Intellect is a part of a good faith. Intellect is the light, the heart is the direction.”

Tariq Ramadan (1962) Swiss muslim scholar

Faith, Light, Heart, Parting

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Beauty

“Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on”

Maria Shriver (1955) journalist and author from the United States

Mother's Day, For Mother

“Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

God

“Original, in French: La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur.

English: Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.”

Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935) French chef, restaurateur, and culinary writer

Happiness, Food

“A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author

“You must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise.”

Michael Ende book The Neverending Story

Source: The Neverending Story

Beauty, Evil

“Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

An Interview by Larry McCaffery
Essays
Variant: I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

“It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Solitude

“Goodness can be found sometimes in the middle of hell.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

Hell

“The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant : The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.
As quoted in Becoming Vegan : The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-based Diet (2000) by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina, p. 261
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 305; also in The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer (1950), p. 179

Thinking, Parting