Good Heart And Good Nature Quotes & Sayings

According to Scripture, it was not man's flesh that fell into sin, but the whole man. The doctrine of total depravity means that the extent of the Fall is total, that every aspect of man's being is tainted by sin, and that the root of it is the 'heart' of man, in his mind, nature and being. To seek refuge in the spirit to escape from the flesh is to seek sanctity in the capitol of sin, for it was and is man's desire to be as God, to be his own god, determining good and evil for himself, which is the essence of original sin (Gen. 3:5). The ascetic quest thus took refuge in sin from sin! It flew from the suburbs of temptation into the central city of sin and was then bewildered to find the enemy there. — Rousas John Rushdoony

Be cheerful [and grateful for the good that you have]: do not brood over fond hopes unrealized until a chain is fastened on each thought and wound around the heart. Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy. — Arthur Helps

Can human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof? — Victor Hugo

All that was good in me thrilled in my heart at that moment, all that I hoped for in the profound, obscure meaning of my existence. Here was the endlessly mute placidity of nature, indifferent to the great city; here was the desert beneath these streets, around these streets, waiting for the city to die, to cover it with timeless sand once more. There came over me a terrifying sense of understanding about the meaning and the pathetic destiny of men. The desert was always there, a patient white animal, waiting for men to die, for civilizations to flicker and pass into the darkness. Then men seemed brave to me, and I was proud to be numbered among them. All the evil of the world seemed not evil at all, but inevitable and good and part of that endless struggle to keep the desert down. — John Fante

The battlefield is symbolic of the field of life, where every creature lives on the death of another. A realization of the inevitable guilt of life may so sicken the heart, that like Hamlet, or like Arjuna, one may refuse to go on with it. On the other hand, like most of the rest of us, one may invent a false finally unjustified image of oneself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world
not guilty as others are, but justified in one's inevitable sinning, because one represents the good. Such self-righteousness leads to a misunderstanding, not only of oneself, but of the nature of both Man and the Cosmos. The goal of the myth is to dispel the need for such life-ignorance by affecting a reconciliation of the individual consciousness with the universal will, and this is affected through a realization of the true relationship of the passing phenomena of time to the imperishable life that lives and dies in all. — Joseph Campbell

And they see, for a moment,
Stretching out, like the desert
In its weary, unprofitable length,
Their faded ignoble lives.

While the locks are yet brown on thy head,
While the soul still looks through thine eyes,
While the heart still pours
The mantling blood to thy cheek,
Sink, O Youth, in thy soul!
Yearn to the greatness of Nature!
Rally the good in the depths of thyself. — Matthew Arnold

Government is nothing more than the combined force of society or the united power of the multitude for the peace, order, safety, good, and happiness of the people ... There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all the others by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike ...
The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation it is impossible they should be enslaved.
Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable ...
There is a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living wth power to endanger public liberty. — David McCullough

Once sin is allowed to settle in your heart, it will not be turned out at your bidding. Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken. The prophet has well said, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). Habits are like stones rolling down hill--the further they roll, the faster and more ungovernable is their course. Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A boy may bend an oak when it is a sapling--a hundred men cannot root it up, when it is a full grown tree. A child can wade over the Thames River at its fountain-head--the largest ship in the world can float in it when it gets near the sea. So it is with habits: the older the stronger--the longer they have held possession, the harder they will be to cast out. — J.C. Ryle

Evil is termed as sin because it has the power to attract the mind. It acts upon our mind and heart to do what nature desires, even when such acts are prohibited by the laws of society. We feel guilty doing things that nature has designed as perfectly natural. — Awdhesh Singh

Kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words. — Thomas More

While genes are pivotal in establishing some aspects of emotionality, experience plays a central role in turning genes on and off. DNA is not the heart's destiny; the genetic lottery may determine the cards in your deck, but experience deals the hand you can play. Scientists have proven, for example, that good mothering can override a disadvantageous temperament.(152) — Thomas Lewis

When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ's, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts. So did Joseph. "How shall I do this great evil," saith he, "and sin against the Lord ?" my good and gracious God. — John Owen

He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep-rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had been without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him to be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred in coldness and severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart. Bred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of reserving the making of man in the image of his Creator to the making of his Creator in the image of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge not, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity. — Charles Dickens

Each blooming flower breathe an open soul of nature's gratitude. Every blooming friendship is an opening of both heart and mind to touch a unique growth of one's soul. Jolly good friends make you bloom with joy even on a coldest winter as you share your common interests in life, in work, in art, with people and of your passion. Treasure your true friends and feel blessed in your life to have them. — Angelica Hopes

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? The reason is clearly that the human heart as modern civilisation has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied, because it feels deply, perhaps even unconsciously, that it has somehow missed the meaning of life, that perhaps others, but not we ourselves, have secured the good things which nature offers man's enjoyment. — Bertrand Russell

And I mean, if there is a God it's probably a good idea to believe in him. But if there isn't a God, then we're just an accident of nature, a virus, pond scum gone berserk, and it won't matter one way or another if I believe or not because who cares?
And so if it doesn't matter, then I choose to believe. There's something mindful about it, about the universe having a heart, us being watched over, maybe life and everything meaning something. — Martine Leavitt

The best test for measuring LDL particles is the NMR Lipoprofile test from Liposcience in Raleigh, North Carolina. NMR is the acronym for "nuclear magnetic resonance" and it is the best commercial lab test using this state-of-the-art technology to determine the nature of your LDL particles - whether they are mostly the large, fluffy Pattern A kind (the good ones) or the small, dense Pattern B type (the bad ones). Your LDL-P number is far more relevant to heart health than your LDL-C will ever be. — Jimmy Moore

Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine; she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments, but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature; nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original; she used to repeat sounding phrases from books; she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment, but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her — Charlotte Bronte

All conscious nature has experiences of pleasure and pain. Man alone can deliberately will the repetition of an experience. And repetition, experienced as such, is at the heart, for good and evil, of his faculty of reasoning, and thus makes possible his language, his art, his morality, and indeed his humanity. Yet it is the enemy of life, for repetition is itself the principle, not of life but of mechanism. — Owen Barfield

Deep in ourselves resides the religious impulse. Out of the passions of our clay it rises.
We have religion when we stop deluding ourselves that we are self-sufficient, self-sustaining or self-derived.
We have religion when we hold some hope beyond the present, some self-respect beyond our failures.
We have religion when our hearts are capable of leaping up at beauty,
when our nerves are edged by some dream in our heart.
We have religion when we have an abiding gratitude for all that we have received.
We have religion when we look upon people with all their failings and still find in them good; when we look beyond people to the grandeur in nature and to the purpose in our own heart.
We have religion when we have done all that we can, and then in confidence entrust ourselves to the life that is
larger than ourselves. — Ralph Helfer

To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in all honorable curiosities, to be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness-these are the gifts of fortune which money cannot buy, and without which money can buy nothing. — Robert Louis Stevenson

If nobody in the world were to think that I am a good person; I wouldn't care! I am aware of the fact that goodness does not materialise due to popular opinion! Goodness in fact is a state of the heart, and the heart is something that is only seen by those who have good enough eyes to see it. I am in fact more interested in being good; than in maintaining the appearance of goodness. — C. JoyBell C.

I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life. — Immanuel Kant

Even if everybody is looking at the same light bulb, the unique composition of an individual will dictate how they interpret and see things. Some people will only see things with their left eye (mind/moon), while others will use only their right (heart/sun). Some people are completely void of light and repel it immediately. For instance, a beetle will chase after an opening of light, while a cockroach will scatter at a crack of it. How are we different than the insects? Nobody is purely good or purely evil. Most of us are in-between. There are moths that explore the day and butterflies that play at night. Polarity is an integral part of nature - human or not human. — Suzy Kassem

Know ye not that there is here in this world a secret confraternity, which one might call the Company of Melancholiacs? That people there are who by natural constitution have been given a different nature and disposition than the others; that have a larger heart and a swifter blood, that wish and demand more, have stronger desires and a yearning which is wilder and more ardent than that of the common herd. They are fleet as children over whose birth good fairies have presided; their eyes are opened wider; their senses are more subtile in all their perceptions. The gladness and joy of life, they drink with the roots of their heart, the while the others merely grasp them with coarse hands. — Jens Peter Jacobsen

... A MAN WHO HAS GIVEN HIS HEART TO LEARNING AND TRUE WISDOM AND EXERCISED THAT PART OF HIMSELF IS SURELY BOUND, IF HE ATTAINS TO TRUTH, TO HAVE IMMORTAL AND DIVINE THOUGHTS, AND CANNOT FAIL TO ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY AS FULL AS IS PERMITTED TO HUMAN NATURE; AND BECAUSE HE HAS ALWAYS LOOKED AFTER THE DIVINE ELEMENT IN HIMSELF AND KEPT HIS GUARDIAN SPIRIT IN GOOD ORDER HE MUST BE HAPPY ABOVE ALL MEN — Plato

I wish you the Love of friends and family...And Peace within your heart.
I wish you the Beauty of nature.
I wish you Generosity so you may share...All good things that come to you.
I wish you Happiness and Joy. — Unknown

I would remind my reader that Donal was a Celt, with a nature open to every fancy of love or awe
one of the same breed with the foolish Galatians, and like them ready to be bewitched; but bearing a heart that welcomed the light with glad rebound
loved the lovely, nor loved it only, but turned towards it with desire to become like it.
Fergus too was a Celt in the main, but was spoiled by the paltry ambition of being distinguished. He was not in love with loveliness, but in love with praise. He saw not a little of what was good and noble, and would fain be such, but mainly that men might regard him for his goodness and nobility; hence his practical notion of the good was weak, and of the noble, paltry. His one desire in doing anything, was to be approved of or admired in the same
approved of in the opinions he held, in the plans he pursued, in the doctrines he taught ... — George MacDonald

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. — Anne Frank

And in every one of us, there's a war going on. It's a civil war. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there's something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It's going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There's a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us ... There's a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I must exist in shadows, while you live under exquisitely blue skies, and yet I don't hate you for the freedom that you take for granted-although I do envy you.
I don't hate you because, after all, you are human, too, and therefore have limitations of your own. Perhaps you are homely, slow-witted or too smart for your own good, deaf or mute or blind, by nature given to despair or to self-hatred, or perhaps you are unusually fearful of Death himself. We all have burdens. On the other hand, if you are better-looking and smarter than I am, blessed with five sharp senses, even more optimistic than I am, with plenty of self-esteem, and if you also share my refusal to be humbled by the Reaper ... well, then I could almost hate you if I didn't know that, like all of us in this imperfect world, you also have a haunted heart and a mind troubled by grief, by loss, by longing. — Dean Koontz

This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by all that gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects. — Jane Austen

If Shirley were not an indolent, a reckless, an ignorant being, she would take a pen at such moments, or at least while the recollection of such moments was yet fresh on her spirit. She would seize, she would fix the apparition, tell the vision revealed. Had she a little more of the organ of acquisitiveness in her head, a little more of the love of property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet of paper and write plainly out, in her own queer but clear and legible hand, the story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her, and thus possess what she was enabled to create. But indolent she is, reckless she is, and most ignorant; for she does not know her dreams are rare, her feelings peculiar. She does not know, has never known, and will die without knowing, the full value of that spring whose bright fresh bubbling in her heart keeps it green. — Charlotte Bronte

At the heart of her bad nature, like many bad natures, was probably envy. And at the heart of envy was possibly hope - that the good fortune of others might one day be hers — Katherine Boo

The intelligence of affection is carried on by the eye only; good-breeding has made the tongue falsify the heart, and act a part of continued restraint, while nature has preserved the eyes to herself, that she may not be disguised or misrepresented. — Joseph Addison

Yet powerful as they were, as powerful as music that brings heart-piercing pain, tears, laughter, with its enchantments, they were as music, subordinate to their own creator. Humans need not, Paks saw, worship their immortality, their cool wisdom, their knowledge of the taig, their ability to repattern mortal perceptions. In brief mortal lives humans met challenges no elf could meet, learned strategies no elf could master, chose evil or good more direct and dangerous than elf could perceive. Humans were shaped for conflict, as elves for harmony; each needed the other's balance of wisdom, but must cleave to its own nature. It was easy for an immortal to counsel patience, withdrawal until a danger passed . . . — Elizabeth Moon

But the most terrible thing was that the shame didn't simply sear my heart, it also mingled into a single whole with the pleasure I was getting from what was going on.
It was something quite unimaginable - truly beyond good and evil. It was then that I finally understood the fatal abysses trodden by De Sade and Sacher-Masoch, who I had always thought absurdly pompous. No, they weren't absurd at all - they simply hadn't been able to find the right words to convey the true nature of their nightmares. And I knew why - there were no such words in any human language.
'Stop,' I whispered through my tears.
But in heart I didn't know what I wanted - for him to stop or to carry on.
I couldn't hold back any longer and I started crying. But they were tears of pleasure, a monstrous, shameful pleasure that was too enthralling to be abandoned voluntarily. — Victor Pelevin

A dragon is a confusion at the heart of things, a law unto himself. He embraces good, evil, and indifference; in his own nature he makes them indivisible and absolute. He knows who he is. Surely you see that... Put it this way. Dragons all love life's finer things- music, art, treasure- the works of the spirit; yet in their personal habits they're foul and bestial- they burn down cathedrals, for instance, and eat maidens- and they see in their whimsical activities no faintest contradiction... Dragons never grow, never change... Believe me, nothing in this world is more despicable than a dragon. They're a walking- or flying- condemnation of all we stand for, all we pray for our children, nay, for ourselves. We struggle to improve ourselves, we tortuously balance on the delicate line between our duties to society and our duties within- our duties to God and our own nature. — John Gardner

Ye accepted Yang's proposal mainly out of gratitude. If he hadn't brought her into this safe haven in her most perilous moment, she would probably no longer be alive. Yang was a talented man, cultured and with good taste. She didn't find him unpleasant, but her heart was like ashes from which the flame of love could no longer be lit. As she pondered human nature, Ye was faced with an ultimate loss of purpose and sank into another spiritual crisis. She had once been an idealist who needed to give all her talent to a great goal, but now she realized that all that she had done was meaningless, and the future could not have any meaningful pursuits, either. As this mental state persisted, she gradually felt more and more alienated from the world. She didn't belong. The sense of wandering in the spiritual wilderness tormented her. After she made a home with Yang, her soul became homeless. One — Liu Cixin

Mother Earth taught me that my anger
toward nature was unfounded.
And she therefore invited me to open my heart to this
possibility: so too may be my anger toward man. — Anasizi Foundation Good Buffalo Eagle

If I can, by a lucky chance, in these uneasy days, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness; if I can, how and then, prompt a happier view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, I shall not have written in vain. — Washington Irving

People ask: Why should I care about the ocean? Because the ocean is the cornerstone of earth's life support system, it shapes climate and weather. It holds most of life on earth. 97% of earth's water is there. It's the blue heart of the planet - we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us. We still have a really good chance to make things better than they are. They won't get better unless we take the action and inspire others to do the same thing. No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something. — Sylvia A. Earle

The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth, are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good. — George Eliot

Afflictions quicken us to prayer. It is a pity it should be so; but experience testifies, that a long course of ease and prosperity, without painful changes - has an unhappy tendency to make us cold and formal in our secret worship. But troubles rouse our spirits, and constrain us to call upon the Lord in good earnest - when we feel a need of that help which we only can have from his almighty arm. Afflictions are useful, and in a degree necessary, to keep alive in us - a conviction of the vanity and unsatisfying nature of the present world, and all its enjoyments; to remind us that this world is not our rest, and to call our thoughts upwards, where our true treasure is, and where our heart ought to be. When things go on much to our wish, our hearts are too prone to say, It is good to be here! — John Newton

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

On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good grateful nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers. — George Eliot

We don't like to hurt. And there is no worse pain for fallen people than facing an emptiness we cannot fill. To enter into pain seems rather foolish when we can run from it through denial. We simply cannot get it through our head that, with a nature twisted by sin, the route to joy always involves the very worst sort of internal suffering we can imagine. We rebel at that thought. We weren't designed to hurt. The physical and personal capacities to feel that God built into us were intended to provide pleasures, like good health and close relationships. When they don't, when our head throbs with tension and our heart is broken by rejection, we want relief. With deep passion, we long to experience what we were designed to enjoy. — Larry Crabb

Living the good life as created beings depends on living within the limits and according to the truths of the human condition. Purity of heart and the capacity to channel desires toward personal self-mastery in holiness are part of the high calling of the Christian life. These remain necessities, despite the promises of a false humanism that claims that human nature has neither limits nor boundaries, being infinitely plastic and malleable -- a vain and counterproductive attempt to liberate humans from guilt. — George Cardinal Pell

I fear you will never arrive at an understanding of God so long as you cannot bring yourself to see the good that often comes as a result of pain. For there is nothing, from the lowest, weakest tone of suffering to the loftiest acme of pain, to which God does not respond. There is nothing in all the universe which does not in some way vibrate within the heart of God. No creature suffers alone; He suffers with His creatures and through it is in the process of bringing His sons and daughters through the cleansing and glorifying fires, without which the created cannot be made the very children of God, partakers of the divine nature and peace. — George MacDonald

On July 2, McCandless finished reading Tolstoy's "Family Happiness", having marked several passages that moved him:
"He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others ...
I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire?" ... — Jon Krakauer

Novels are political not because writers carry party cards
some do, I do not
but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the 'art of the novel' lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist. — Orhan Pamuk

If you can be your own force of nature and have a positive heart, then you can actually do something good in the world. — Eddie Izzard

She knew half of the correspondents had broken under the excruciating pressure. And the other half who said they had made it, simply lied. She also knew there was a good chance she would too. But it was still worth it. Because if Viola wanted anything approaching a deeper meaning, she knew it existed in moments filled with injustice and cruelty. That's where true human nature lay for her. Not because of the ferocity itself but because of what came with it, true human heart and compassion. — Piotr Ryczko