“Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Success
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870)
Quotes about goodness page 39
“Adventure in life is good; consistency in coffee even better.”
Justina Chen (1968) American writer
Source: North of Beautiful
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
A Letter from Cuba (1934)
Context: All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.
Context: All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
Paulo Coelho book Aleph
Source: Aleph (2011)
Context: Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.
“A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.”
Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer
“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience - well, that comes from poor judgment.”
A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author
“It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer
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
“Be so good they can't ignore you.”
Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer
“I will remember this word," he said. "Shenanigans. It is a good word.”
John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower
Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
“What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.”
Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist
Source: Immortal Beloved
“One time I actually cleaned out my closet so good I ended up on the cover of Time magazine.”
Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress
“I hate reality but it's still the best place to get a good steak.”
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Devil in Winter
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Source: Song of Myself
“Gold don't come off. What's good stays good no matter how much of a beating it takes.”
Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Source: NOS4A2
“Fight with realistic
hope, not to destroy
all the world's wrong,
but to renew its good.”
Elizabeth Wein book Rose Under Fire
Source: Rose Under Fire
Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)
“Capital Letters Were Always The Best Way Of Dealing With Things You Didn't Have A Good Answer To.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist
“A good laugh is sunshine in a house”
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist
Variant: A good laugh is a sunshine in a house.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Source: Walden and Other Writings
“Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?”
Dennis Lehane book Shutter Island
Source: Shutter Island
“In great hearts the cruelty of life gives birth to good.”
Vasily Grossman book Life and Fate
Source: Life and Fate
Glen Cook book Shadows Linger
Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 33, “Juniper: The Encounter” (p. 367)
Context: I do not believe in evil absolute. I have recounted that philosophy in specific in the Annals, and it affects my every observation throughout my tenure as Annalist. I believe in our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact, by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another.
“Never was a cornflake girl;
Thought it was a good solution: hanging with the raisin girls.”
Tori Amos (1963) American singer
Source: Under the Pink
Aldous Huxley book Point Counter Point
Variant: A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Source: Point Counter Point
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)
Context: As we address these challenges – and others we cannot foresee tonight – America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)
Context: I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?".
“Sometimes all you need to live one more day is a good reason to stick around.”
Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller
Source: The Storyteller
“If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.”
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer
“I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy”
Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist
“I'm like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good.”
Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her
Source: This Is How You Lose Her
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (4 September 1929); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 132
Variant transcription from "Death of a Genius" in Life Magazine: "I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death, or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar."
Context: About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.
“A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.”
Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine
Source: The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)
Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You
“I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much – in just standing and staring.”
James Herriot (1916–1995) veterinary surgeon and writer
“A good river is nature's life work in song.”
Mark Helprin book Freddy and Fredericka
Source: Freddy and Fredericka
“Good? No, that didn't go far enough. She'd made him feel… alive. Awakened.”
Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist
Source: Lover Awakened
“The good die first, and they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, burn to the socket.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
“The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?”
Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White
Source: The Woman in White
