“People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.”
Source: The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
Quotes about goodness
page 49
“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
H.L. Mencken
(1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Source: The Lover's Dictionary
Source: Night Game
“In the middle of a crazy and drunk life, you have to hang onto the good and sober moments tightly.”
Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime — the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
“I don't really like you, but I'm so good at acting as if I do that it's basically the same thing.”
Lisa Scottoline
(1955) American writer
Source: Every Fifteen Minutes
Entendia que há larga ponderação de males e bens, e que a arte de viver consiste em tirar o maior bem do maior mal.
Source: Iaiá Garcia (1878) ch. 3; Albert I. Bagby, Jr. (trans.) Iaiá Garcia (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1977) p. 23.
Volume i, p. 526; see #Disputed below.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
Source: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents: Volume 1 Paperback: 001
“Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.”
Michel De Montaigne
(1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
Book I, Ch. 25
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays
Jean Cocteau
(1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
“If you are feeling good, it is because you are thinking good thoughts.”
Rhonda Byrne
book
The Secret
Source: The Secret
“But do you love me? If Erik were good-looking, would you love me, Christine?”
Source: The Phantom of the Opera
“There is only one good thing in life, and that is love.”
Guy De Maupassant
(1850–1893) French writer
"The Love of Long Ago"
Source: The Complete Short Stories of de Maupassant
Context: There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.
Source: Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
“Don't ever trust men with good intentions. They'll always disappoint you."
Leo”
Lisa Kleypas
(1964) American writer
Source: Tempt Me at Twilight
“It's good to be out of your comfort zone. Just don't step out of your gift zone.”
John C. Maxwell
(1947) American author, speaker and pastor
Katniss and Peeta (p. 388; closing words of the main text)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real."
“Today might not be so good. But tomorrow, you got another chance to get it right.”
Source: Absolute Power
Raymond Carver
(1938–1988) American short story author and poet
Source: All of Us: The Collected Poems
Albert Einstein
(1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Variant translations: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties — this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.
As quoted in After Einstein : Proceedings of the Einstein Centennial Celebration (1981) by Peter Barker and Cecil G. Shugart, p. 179
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
As quoted in Introduction to Philosophy (1935) by George Thomas White Patrick and Frank Miller Chapman, p. 44
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Context: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.
Flannery O’Connor
(1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer
Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
“Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.”
William Makepeace Thackeray
(1811–1863) novelist
Sketches and Travels in London; Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: "On Tailoring — And Toilettes in General" (1856).
Source: Sketches and Travels, Etc.
Dossie Easton
(1944) American author and family therapist
Source: The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities
“Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.”
George Gordon Byron
(1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Vera Nazarian
(1966) American writer
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“Nobody is smarter than you are. And what if they are? What good is their understanding doing you?”
Terence McKenna
(1946–2000) American ethnobotanist
“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away.”
Linus Pauling
(1901–1994) American scientist
Variant: The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
Source: Memoirs of a Geisha
Thomas Sowell
(1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author
Social Deterioration
1980s–1990s, Is Reality Optional? (1993)
“The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad history but honest and inclusive history.”
Source: Lies My Teacher Told Me
Ilona Andrews
American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Rises
“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind badger.”
Louise Rennison
(1951–2016) British writer
Source: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.”
Jane Austen
book
Persuasion
Source: Persuasion
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
“The good thing about being old, is you don’t have to worry about dying young.”
Stephen King
book
Doctor Sleep
Source: Doctor Sleep
Richard Rohr
(1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest
Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Source: Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last
“Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.”
Source: Zorba the Greek
Henry Ford
(1863–1947) American industrialist
Variant: There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wage possible.
“Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.”
Source: I Capture the Castle
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”
Rachel Cohn
(1968) American writer
Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
“A good book isn't written, it's rewritten.”
Phyllis A. Whitney
(1903–2008) American writer
Source: Guide to Fiction Writing
Edith Wharton
(1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer
Source: Ethan Frome and Other Short Fiction