Quotes about goodness
page 38

“Love has nothing to do with good reasons.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

Love

“Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Men

“The true roll in determing to embrace or reject anything is not whether it have any evil in it but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.”

Seth Grahame-Smith (1976) US fiction author

Source: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Evil

“Within the soul of each Vietnam veteran there is probably something that says “Bad war, good soldier.” Only now are Americans beginning to separate the war from the warrior.”

Max Cleland (1942) American politician

War, Soul

“You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands - your own.”

Mark Victor Hansen (1948) American writer

Dreams, Thinking, Future, Personality

“In Japanese and Italian, the response to ["How are you?"] is "I'm fine, and you?" In German it's answered with a sigh and a slight pause, followed by "Not so good.”

David Sedaris book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Source: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

“He was a great poet" They lamented.

No, he was not a great poet," said Theo, "He was a good poet, he could have been better. That's the real loss don't you see?”

Lloyd Alexander book The Kestrel

Source: The Kestrel

Loss

“I'm so burned out, the only person I can stand is myself.
I'm the only one I would put through this.
Wheels and wings,
The ride is everything.
I'm all I've got.
I'm all I can take.
Another day has destroyed a part of me.
So far so good.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: See A Grown Man Cry/Now Watch Him Die

Parting, Personality

“And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude… I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 30 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_30 <br class="br">Source: The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

God, Gratitude

“When we focus on what is good and beautiful in someone, whether or not we think that they "deserve" it, the good and beautiful are strengthened merely by the light of our attention.”

Katrina Kenison American writer

Source: The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir

Beauty, Thinking, Light

“Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: The Origin of Species

Nature

“… when you put your life in a good place, good things follow.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Source: The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart

Life

“I will continue to freak out my children by knitting in public. It's good for them.”

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (1968) Canadian writer

Source: At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

Children

“Jem" I have an assignmation in Soho this evening with a certain attractive someone.

Tessa: Goodness. If you keep seeing Six-Fingered Nigel like this, he'll expect you to declare your intentions.
Jem choked on his tea.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Tea

“Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses.”

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

Feeling, Sense, Personality

“As Nietzsche said, ‘that which doesn’t kill you– ’(Alexion)
Will only require brief hospitalization. And if you’re a Dark-Hunter, just a good day’s sleep. (Danger)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Sins of the Night

Sleep

“You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.”

Paul Sweeney (1989) Scottish politician

Books, Feeling, Reading

“Peace and harmony do not require perfection. Thank goodness for that—because life so often seems to be an itch here, a glitch there, a mess waiting to happen. Harmony is flexible. It bends with imperfection. So should you.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Life, Peace, Waiting, Perfection

“In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.”

Yann Martel (1963) Canadian author best known for the book Life of Pi

Women, Men, Youth, Teachers

“It's the most charming thing about humans. You are all so sure that the lesser animals are bleeding with envy because they didn't have the good fortune to be born Homo sapiens.”

Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead

Source: Speaker for the Dead

Animals, Envy

“I dearly love a laugh… I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Love, Hope

“She was so intelligent that she could think herself into beauty. Intelligence… they don't talk about it much, the poets, but when a woman is intelligent and passionate and good…”

Eva Ibbotson A Company of Swans

Source: A Company of Swans

Beauty, Intelligence, Thinking, Passion

“It turns out that, at social gatherings, as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, I rank somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Trademarked closing lines in The Writer's Almanac http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ <br class="br">Source: Good Poems

Goodbye

“My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Law, Business

“One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

People

“if we could act a little more according to common sense, and a good deal less according to fashion, we should find many things work easier;”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

Fashion, Sense

“It's a good thing most people bleed on the inside or this would be a gory, blood-smeared earth.”

Beatrice Sparks (1917–2012) American writer

Source: Go Ask Alice

People

“We don’t drift in good directions. We discipline and prioritize ourselves there.”

Andy Stanley (1958) American Christian minister

Source: The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“How still,
How strangely still
The water is today,
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.

~ "Sea Calm”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Way, Water, Sea

“It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Source: Sula

“Now here's a good one:
you're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?”

Louise Penny book A Fatal Grace

Source: A Fatal Grace

Lying, Forgiveness

“Desi, babe. Still playing your little games, I see. Now why don't you be a good Daimon and show yourself to me? (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Game

“Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Food, Cooking

“Has anyone ever told you," I said, "that you coalesce reality?"
"No. They only say that I'm good in the sack."
"They are accurate but limited," I said. "And if you give me their names I'll kill them.”

Robert B. Parker (1932–2010) American crime writer

Reality

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"The Catholic Sun"

Laughter, Wine, Sun

“Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Heart, Gratitude, Happiness

“I love you all. But it's time to say good-bye, for now.
be careful with the world, or the next time we meet, it might get ugly.
-Tally Youngblood”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

Love, World, Time

“Good days and long nights to ya, sai.”

Stephen King book Wizard and Glass

Variant: Long days and pleasant nights.
Source: Wizard and Glass

Night

“No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Hostility, Books, Reading

“[Ida] "…It's a good world if you don't weaken."”

Graham Greene book Brighton Rock

Source: Brighton Rock (1938)

World

“I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: What Are People For?

Life, Tree, Water, Animals

“It is not the same thing to be good and to be kind.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“What life gives us, good or bad, we seldom deserve.”

William Kent Krueger (1950) author, novelist

Source: Iron Lake

Life

“While my insides may be rotten, I still like a good reason to kill someone. It has to be either business, personal, or out of sheer boredom.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Maleficent Seven: From the World of Skulduggery Pleasant

Business, Personality

“Complaining of unfairness is like assigning blame, Percy Jackson. It does no one any good.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“Then I reckon we got ourselves a good old-fashioned standoff."
…
Nobody moved, or said anything, for the next few moments.
"Old-fashioned standoffs are mighty borin”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Faceless Ones

Fashion

“Most good things come with the risk of something bad.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

“A change is as good as a rest.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

Change

“Bad books engender bad habits, but bad habits engender good books.”

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

Books

“Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the wood
Others may decieve you
You decide what's good
You decide alone
But no one is alone”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

Source: Into the Woods

People

“Do you eat chicken because you are familiar with the scientific literature on them and have decided that their suffering doesn't matter, or do you do it because it tastes good?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Literature, Suffering

“Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life, Evil

“Doesn't matter if it's personal or professional, a good partnership takes.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Saga, Vol. 1

Personality, Partnership

“… intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over…”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Fate

“Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Reading, Heart, Drawing

“Why be so bloody miserable when you can pick up a good book or watch a great television drama?”

Michael Dobbs (1948) British conservative politician and best-selling author

Books

“Michael smiled at me a little. “You’re a good man, Harry. But you’re making the same mistake Nicodemus always has—and the same one Karrin did.” “What mistake?” “You all think the critical word in the phrase ‘Sword of Faith’ is ‘sword.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

Faith, Smile, Thinking

“You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Heart

“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

“No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.”

Carrie Fisher book Wishful Drinking

Source: Wishful Drinking

Life, Motivation

“I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

“Sometimes, fewer choices can be a good thing.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

“If you need drugs to be a good writer, you're not a good writer.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

The Rod Serling bio page on the Internet Movie DataBase.
Other

“I had very good eyes once. Though it's another thing to say what I saw. In my experience, it is entirely possible to watch something happen and not to see it at all.”

Anna Funder book All That I Am

Source: All That I Am

“He was someone whom everyone admired and liked but whom nobody knew. He was like a book that you could feel good holding, that you could talk about without ever having read, that you could recommend.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Books, Feeling, Reading

“It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

People, Fear, Personality

“Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good.”

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

“She would've been a good woman," said The Misfit, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Life

“A bad boy can be very good for a girl.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Source: Girl Stays in the Picture

Girl, Boy

“What's the good news?
-Pardon?
-You said the bad news is we're going the wrong way.
-There isn't any good news. Just because there's bad news doesn't mean there's good news, too.”

David Benioff book City of Thieves

Source: City of Thieves

Way

“Well, good news, " Blitzen said. "I found the bag. Bad news… I found the bag.”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

“Imagine the amazing good fortune of the generation that gets to see the end of the world. This is as marvelous as being there in the beginning.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

World, Imagination

“It’s good for you to think of this, son. Ponder. Worry. Stay up nights, frightened for the casualties of your ideology. It will do you good to realize the price of fighting.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

Thinking, Fight, Night

“Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Family

“We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Life, Imagination, Happiness

“Then from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of the wild things.”

Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are

Source: Where the Wild Things Are

World

“Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Ladies of the Corridor

Intelligence

“It’s a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too.”

Leonard Cohen book Beautiful Losers

Source: Beautiful Losers

Love, People

“The good thing about being explosive is that no one can beat you.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

“I lean over and put my good ear to his lips, which tickle me as he whispers. "Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me any time you like it.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Love, Kiss, Time

“If everyone waited to do something good until they had purely unselfish motivations, no good would ever get done in the world. The point is to do it anyway.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: 13 Gifts

World, Motivation, Waiting

“If you can find one good thing to say about her I'll turn vegetarian!”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Night of the Solstice

“Perhaps it's good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he's happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?”

Aldous Huxley book Antic Hay

Source: Antic Hay

Life, Art, Suffering, Happiness

“Good anecdote--bad reality.”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

Reality

“If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

Way

“God, of thy goodness, give me Thyself;
for Thou art enough for me,
and I can ask for nothing less
that can be full honor to Thee.
And if I ask anything that is less,
ever Shall I be in want,
for only in Thee have I all.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The First Revelation, Chapter 5
Context: Also our Lord God shewed that it is full great pleasance to Him that a helpless soul come to Him simply and plainly and homely. For this is the natural yearnings of the soul, by the touching of the Holy Ghost (as by the understanding that I have in this Shewing): God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself: for Thou art enough to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worship to Thee; and if I ask anything that is less, ever me wanteth, — but only in Thee I have all.
And these words are full lovely to the soul, and full near touch they the will of God and His Goodness. For His Goodness comprehendeth all His creatures and all His blessed works, and overpasseth without end. For He is the endlessness, and He hath made us only to Himself, and restored us by His blessed Passion, and keepeth us in His blessed love; and all this of His Goodness.

God, Art