Genuine Good People Quotes & Sayings

In submission we are at last free to value other people. Their dreams and plans become important to us. We have entered into a new, wonderful, glorious freedom, the freedom to give up our own rights for the good of others. For the first time we can love people unconditionally. We have given up the right for them to return our love. No longer do we feel we have to be treated in a certain way. We can rejoice with their successes. We feel genuine sorrow at their failures. It is of little consequence that our plans are frustrated, if their plans succeed. We discover that it is far better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way. — Richard J. Foster

Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment ... 'dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love
which is to transform us.' Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling. — Bell Hooks

You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be. — Tony Kushner

A boy is in the parlour what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests: he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat, he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For Jefferson, there was one step crucial to creating a genuine natural aristocracy. The poor and rich had to have equal access to a good education. That's why, despite being soemthing of a liberatarian, he repeatedly proposed that the state pay for universal primary education as well as fund education at later stages. He was met with opposition from many quarters, mostly those wary of big government or highter taxes. Yet interestingly, one of this most ardent supporters was an old friend and political opponent, the conservative John Adams. "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it," Adams wrote. "There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people. — Fareed Zakaria

As Titanic began production, there was an immediate chemistry between Barbara and myself - a lot of looks across the room. At this point Barbara Stanwyck was a legendary actress, universally respected for her level of craft and integrity. She also had the most valuable thing a performer can have: good taste. Besides a long list of successful bread-and-butter pictures, Barbara had made genuine classics for great directors: The Bitter Tea of General Yen and Meet John Doe for Frank Capra, Stella Dallas for King Vidor, The Lady Eve for Preston Sturges, Ball of Fire for Howard Hawks, and Double Indemnity for Billy Wilder. Barbara carried her success lightly; her attitude was one of utter professionalism and no noticeable temperament. As far as she was concerned, she was simply one of a hundred or so people gathered to make a movie - no more, no less. — Robert Wagner

It should be possible to discuss what I have put forward. Sometimes, when it has not been a good lecture, it would need very little, just one question, to put everything straight. However, this question never comes. The group effect in France makes any genuine discussion impossible. And as there is no feedback, the course is theatricalized. My relationship with the people there is like that of an actor or an acrobat. And when I have finished speaking, a sensation of total solitude ... — Michel Foucault

Genuine compassion makes people feel good, but it doesn't tolerate total despair or hopelessness, let alone complicity. — Erik Valeur

I have a genuine philosophy. I do not want to make negative pictures about people, and so I do everything I can to help make them feel comfortable in front of the camera. That is what is going to control your picture, because you are alone if your subject is not with you. And that's the simple answer to getting a good picture. — Douglas Kirkland

When you're a child, your best friend in the world is the kid who lives next door. It doesn't occur to you then that this is a matter of arbitrary circumstance. When you grow up you like to imagine that your friendships have a more substantial basis - common interests, like-mindedness, some genuine affinity. It's always a sad revelation that when a good friend acquires a girlfriend or a husband and disappears. You realize that,for them, your friendships was always only a matter of convenience, a fallback, and they simply don't need you anymore. There's nothing especially cynical about this; people are drawn to each other because they're giving each other something they both need, and they drift apart when they aren't getting it or don't need it anymore. Friendship have natural life spans, like love affairs or favorite songs. — Tim Kreider

It's not unfortunate that people aren't genuine; what's unfortunate is that insincere people try to act sincere and in doing so, mislead and deceive the other. I would rather meet a person who is not amiable and who does not feel any burden to act amiable towards me, than to have the misfortune of knowing people who feel like they need to be gracious and compassionate so they will appear to be good people, whilst possessing none of those qualities within themselves! It's the latter that causes the pain in life. And that's another reason why I don't believe in religion; I have observed that religion tells people that it is highly prized a quality to act kind and compassionate and so on and so forth, but some people just do not have these innate qualities within them! We get deceived, and I'd rather not be deceived! I'd rather be able to see a person for who he/she is and not judge a brute for being a brute, but avoid the brute who carries the burden of acting like a wonderful one! — C. JoyBell C.

The time for miracles has either passed or not come yet, besides, miracles, genuine miracles, whatever people say, are not such a good idea, if it means destroying the very order of things in order to improve them. — Jose Saramago

When you were kids, you can tell when an adult is bad or good; and I think people can feel that I'm genuine. It's the best thing in the world. — Jason David Frank

I'm genuine and I'm available. I want people to be at their best. I want them to love and be loved to their fullest ability. My friends call me their relationship nanny, so we have a good time working through problems. Now, I don't claim to be an expert, but I am a woman who has been through everything. — Niecy Nash

Every soul seeks happiness, Socrates believes, and there is a clearly defined path to achieving happiness, though many don't choose to take it. The only people who are truly happy are those who are virtuous and wise, who live reflective, "examined" lives and strive to behave rightly and justly in every area of their lives. These people create souls that are good, wise, and courageous and as a result they achieve genuine and lasting happiness. — Pearson

He desired her vaguely but without convinction. They walked together. He suddenly realized that she had always been very decent to him. She had accepted him as he was and had spared him a great deal of loneliness. He had been unfair: while his imagination and vanity had given her too much importance, his pride had given her too little. He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love
first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. Today he understood that she had been genuine with him
that she had been what she was, and that he owed her a good deal. — Albert Camus

What happened?" I asked quietly.
"I lost some people," [Rogan] said. There was an awful finality in his voice.
I hadn't thought he cared. I'd thought he viewed his people as tools and took care of them because tools had to be kept in good repair, but this sounded like genuine grief - that complicated cocktail of guilt, regret, and overwhelming sadness you felt when someone close to you died. It broke you and made you feel helpess. Helpless wasn't even in Rogan's vocabulary. — Ilona Andrews

I feel like when I try to fit in, it comes across as not genuine, and that is not good. I'd rather just do me and have people say, 'Oh. That's interesting,' than try to fit in. — Ariana Grande

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa — Mother Teresa

Were genuine aliens to find us ... the chances were fairly good they would appear in a form beyond reckoning, shaped by the requirements of their environment. It was only for the convenience of the costume department of Star Trek that people believed in humanoid aliens. — Thomm Quackenbush

You can only be your best self. When I initially got on the air, I would look around me and watch people that I thought were really good and try to be like they were. And I got to a point where I realized, "I can't be them." I can only be the best that Abby can be. And as long as I'm myself and I'm genuine and I'm real, then I think that's all you can do. — Abby Huntsman

We could all take heart. These are the wise ones who sit in front of us, to whom we prostrate when we do prostrations. We can prostrate to them as an example of our own wisdom mind of enlightened beings, but perhaps it's also good to prostrate to them as confused, mixed-up people with a lot of neurosis, just like ourselves. They are good examples of people who never gave up on themselves and were not afraid to be themselves, who therefore found their own genuine quality and their own true nature. The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate. — Pema Chodron

A world ought to have a few genuine good guys, and not just a spectrum of people running from bad to worse. — Glen Cook

Life is depressing and hopeless enough, without imbibing further depression and hopelessness through story. I don't care how realistic people like to think that is. It's not what inspires me, or makes me love and cherish a book or a television show or a movie. When I am imbibing fiction, I want to be inspired. I want bold tales, told boldly. I want genuine Good People who, while not perfect, are capable of rising beyond their ordinary beginnings. To make a positive difference in their world. Even when all hope or purpose might seem lost. Because this is what I think fiction - as originally told around the campfires, through verbal legend - ought to do, more than anything else: Illuminate the way, shine a spiritual beacon, tell us that there is a bright point in the darkness, a light to guide the way, when all other paths are cast in shadow. — Brad R. Torgersen

Quite often people will get an animal which is probably not a good idea for them to have. They get it out of enthusiasm, there is a genuine interest, but sometimes they're not exactly prepared for what they're getting themselves into. — Henry Rollins

No genuine change in society ever occurs without the mass public getting behind a cause. The good guys in government are counting on enough of us common people waking up and demanding more rights and greater freedoms. — James Morcan

Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good ... — Milan Kundera

What I mean is, all the terrible things that happen in fairy tales seem real. Or not real, but genuine. Life is unfair, and the bad guys keep winning and good people die. But I like how that's not always the end of it ... Evil is real, but so is good. They always say fairy tales are simplistic, black and white, but I don't think so. I think they're complicated. That's what I love about them. — Polly Shulman

I will say go into the world and try to find good people that feel genuine affection and love for you, and disregard everything else about their background. — Randall Kennedy

Saudade is presented as the key feeling of the Portuguese soul. The word comes from the Latin plural solitates, "solitudes," but its derivation was influenced by the idea and sonority of the Latin salvus, "in good health," "safe." A long tradition that goes back to the origins of Lusophone language, to the thirteenth-century cantiga d'amigo, has repeatedly explored, in literature and philosophy, the special feeling of a people that has always looked beyond its transatlantic horizons. Drawn from a genuine suffering of the soul, saudade became, for philosophical speculation, particularly suitable for expressing the relationship of the human condition to temporality, finitude, and the infinite. — Barbara Cassin