Quotes & Sayings About Goodness

One whose chief regard is for his own mind, and for the divinity within him and the service of its goodness, will strike no poses, utter no complaints, and crave neither for solitude nor yet for a crowd. Best of all, his life will be free from continual pursuing and avoiding. — Marcus Aurelius

Good is not good, unless A thousand it possess, But doth waste with greediness. — John Donne

I still believe in the nonviolent Jesus and the basic human goodness present in all of us. — Martin Sheen

The good repent on knowing their sin; the evil become angry when discovered. Ignorance is not the cause of evil, as Plato held; neither is education the answer to the removal of evil. These men had an intellect as well as a will; knowledge as well as intention. Truth can be known and hated; Goodness can be known and crucified. The Hour was approaching, and for the moment the fear of the people deterred the Pharisees. Violence could not be triggered against Him until He would say, 'This is your Hour. — Fulton J. Sheen

Conan O'Brien has talked about how comedians try to emulate their heroes, fall short, and end up doing their own thing. Johnny Carson tried to be Jack Benny but ended up Johnny Carson. David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson but ended up David Letterman. And Conan O'Brien tried to be David Letterman but ended up Conan O'Brien. In O'Brien's words, "It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique." Thank goodness. — Austin Kleon

Free time is death to the anxious, and thank goodness I don't have any of it right now. — Jon Stewart

It isn't a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state's goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government's propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They'll fasten the chains to their own ankles. H.L. Mencken once said that the state doesn't just want to make you obey. It tries to make you want to obey. And that's one thing the government schools do very well. — Llewellyn Rockwell

Good, then, is indefinable.... — G.E. Moore

Cheerfulness is an offshoot of goodness and of wisdom. — Christian Nestell Bovee

What is true is that I have at times earned my own crust of bread, and at other times a friend has given it to me out of the goodness of his heart. I have lived whatever way I could, for better or for worse, taking things just as they came. — Vincent Van Gogh

Now I realize that everything you need for measuring a person can be found in the nature of what he chooses to hide from everyone else. That's all you need to know to gauge his goodness. — Jamie Mason

One needs to be either more brave or more good, because if courage is lacking goodness can substitute, while cowardice is the deficiency of both. — Neel Burton

The death of God has set the angels free. And they are terrible. There are principalities and powers. Angels are the thoughts of God. Now he had been dissolved into his thoughts which are beyond our conception in their nature and their multiplicity and their power. God was at least the name of something which we thought was good. Now even the name has gone and the spiritual world is scattered. There is nothing any more to prevent the magnetism of many spirits. — Iris Murdoch

The problem in todays world is that people lack trust in goodness. — Amit Abraham

For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him? — John Calvin

If you cross-section anyone's life from one angle and then another, what constitutes goodness looks different each time. It's not an absolute. — Catherine Brady

Keep doing good deeds long enough and you'll probably turn out a good man in spite of yourself. — Louis Auchincloss

In my ninety-plus years, I have learned a secret. I have learned that when good men and good women face challenges with optimism, things will always work out! Truly, things always work out! Despite how difficult circumstances may look at the moment, those who have faith and move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out. — Gordon B. Hinckley

And when Hightower approaches, the smell of plump unwashed flesh and unfresh clothing
that odor of unfastidious sedentation, of static overflesh not often enough bathed
is well nigh overpowering. [ ... ] It is the odor of goodness. Of course it would smell bad to us that are bad and sinful. — William Faulkner

Why, my goodness, honey. After looking at all those pictures of seraphic and perspirationless babes for so long in the privacy of a foxhole, what is a poor doughfoot going to do when he comes home and discovers that American women are, after all, biological and given, under stress, to shiny noses? — Margaret Mitchell

Don't look for the ninety percent of the darkness in a person's soul. Look for the ten percent of light they have left, then lend them yours because light was meant to be shared. — Shannon L. Alder

Be a lamp in someone's dark world. — Matshona Dhliwayo

This invisible and divine goodness, of which I only speak here because of its being one of the surest and nearest signs of the unceasing activity of our soul, this invisible and divine goodness ennobles, in decisive fashion, all that it has unconsciously touched. — Maurice Maeterlinck

With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures. — A.W. Tozer

How-Ya-Do's eyes were even larger than usual as he cowered on Cricket's shoulder. The both of them were speechless, shocked into silence, and Face-to-Face with Magic itself!
"You scared the spark right out of us, well speak-up for goodness sake before I sic' The Hummers onto you both," she warned while pointing to the massive army of bees. — Darwun St. James

Sebastian," Katarina said, turning to her nephew. "You've grown."
"It happens," Sebastian quipped, flashing her his usual lopsided grin.
"Goodness," she said with smile, "you'll be a danger to the ladies soon."
Harry very nearly rolled his eyes. Sebastian had already made conquests of nearly all the girls in the village near Hesslewhite. He must give off some sort of scent, because the females positively fell at his feet.
It would have been appalling, except that the girls couldn't all dance with Sebastian. And Harry was more than happy to be the nearest man standing when the smoke cleared. — Julia Quinn

Reasercher 101,
I do not long for the old, unreachable days. When I'm plugged in I can go anywhere, do and learn anything. Today, for instance, I visited a tiny library in Portugal. I learned how the Shakers weave baskets and I discovered my best friend in middle school loves blood-orange sorbet. Okay, I also learned that a certain pop star actually believes she's a fairy, an honest-to-goodness fairy from the fey people, but my point is access. Access to information. I don't even have to look out my window to see what the eather is like. I can have the weather delivered every morning to my phone. What could be better?
Sincerely,
Wife 22
Wife 22,
Getting caught in the rain?
All the best,
Researcher 101 — Melanie Gideon

Perhaps, if you weren't so busy regarding my shortcomings, you'd find that I do possess redeeming qualities, discreet as they may be. I notice when the sky is blue. I smile down at children. I laugh at any innocent attempt at humor. I quietly carry the burdens of others as though they were my own. And I say 'I'm sorry' when you don't. I am not without fault, but I am not without goodness either. — Richelle E. Goodrich

All the variety of species of life created be,
By combination of three basic material energy;
- 45 -
These Guna modus operandi of material energy,
They are called tamo, rajo and sattva clearly;
- 46 -
Tamo-guna associated with inertia, ignorance be,
The rajo-guna associated with passion, activity;
- 47 -
Sattva-guna associated with goodness, harmony,
And all three of them associated with thinking truly.
- 48 - — Munindra Misra

No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled. — George Eliot

Intellectually I touched God many times as truth and emotionally I touched God as love. I touched God as goodness. I touched God as kindness. It came to me that God is a creative force, a motivating power, an over-all intelligence, an ever-present, all pervading spirit - which binds everything in the universe together and gives life to everything. That brought God close. I could not be where God is not. You are within God. God is within you. — Peace Pilgrim

God is happy because he has the power to do as he pleases and because everything he does is right and good. Nothing can frustrate his happiness. God is so happy that his happiness spills out on us in the form of mercy. He showers goodness on us because he enjoys it. His greatest happiness is to share his happiness with us. We experience his overflowing happiness when we accept that everything we need to be happy is found in him. "The LORD's delight is in those who . . . put their hope in his unfailing love. — Anonymous

Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes. — C.S. Lewis

Sadie?"
"What?"
"You with me?"
I blinked in confusion and said, "Yes." And I was, wasn't I? I was standing in his arms for goodness sake.
"This is Sadie?" Hector went on.
I blinked again. "Yes."
"My Sadie?" he kept at it.
This time I blinked for a different reason.
His Sadie? Was there a Hector's Sadie? Was I Hector's Sadie? Did Hector think I was his Sadie?
Oh ... my ... God.
Before I could process what he said or get close to processing what that meant, I watched him smile, then he bent his head and kissed my lips.
"Yeah," he said, his face an inch away. "It's my Sadie. — Kristen Ashley

Laying down what we want to protect or are afraid of losing or are terrified we will never have is not the same thing as losing those things. It is surrendering them. It is opening up our clenched hand around them and allowing God access to them and to us. It is actually saying yes to God for them. Yes to his plan. Yes to his way. It is believing that just as his ways are higher than the heavens are above the earth, so his way for the things we fear is higher. This God of ours is a God of life, of goodness. He is the God of the Resurrection. We lay down our fear. We pick up Jesus. He is the only way we can live beyond fear. He is the Way. — Stasi Eldredge

No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it
to remain children of light. — Albert Schweitzer

Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. The value of fairy tales lies not in a brief literary escape from reality, but in the gift of hope that goodness truly is more powerful than evil and that even the darkest reality can lead to a Happily Ever After. Do not take that gift of hope lightly. It has the power to conquer despair in the midst of sorrow, to light the darkness in the valleys of life, to whisper "One more time" in the face of failure. Hope is what gives life to dreams, making the fairy tale the reality. — L.R. Knost

Goodness, my nose is enormous,' she exclaimed. 'Why didn't anyone tell me? — Cassandra Clare

God has sovereignly pulled back the curtain on His glory. He has disclosed Himself on the platform of both creation and redemption that we might stand awestruck in His presence, beholding the sweet symmetry of His attributes, pondering the unfathomable depths of His greatness, baffled by the wisdom of His deeds and the limitless extent of His goodness. This is His beauty. — Sam Storms

When you call someone a sinner, make sure you have no sin in you, and if you say you are without sin, you are a righteous liar. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views - amen, so be it. And — Robert Louis Stevenson

Praise to the Lord 1 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation! All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near; Join ye in glad adoration! 2 Praise to the Lord, Who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth, Shieldeth thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth! Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been Granted in what He ordaineth? 3 Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee; Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, If with His love He befriend thee. — J.J.

Goodness preaches constantly, wants to change humanity, to work miracles from one day to the next, makes a show of its substance, wants to question essentials, but in fact is most often just hollow, lacking in substance, essence itself. A good word which has not yet been put into practice holds within itself every virgin possibility and is more than a good deed, the outcome of which is dubious, its effect arguable. In general words are always more than deeds. — Deszo Koszstolanyi

The best way to do good to ourselves is to do it to others; the right way to gather is to scatter. — Seneca The Younger

Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one. — Marcus Aurelius

When I was a kid, my goodness, corporate America was a bunch of stolid white guys in gray suits trying to be serious, and now it's stolid white guys in gray suits trying to be funny. — Emo Philips

Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre To cultivate the sense of the beautiful, is one of the most effectual ways of cultivating an appreciation of the divine goodness. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Rene Char wrote somewhere, apropos poetry, that there are those who create and those who discover; they are too completely different worlds. Photograph also has two sides to it and thank goodness, I am only intersted in those who discover; I feel a certain solidarity with those who set out in a spirit of discovery; I think there is much more risk invovled in this than in trying to create images; and in the end, reality is more important. — Henri Cartier-Bresson

God's Wisdom and God's Goodness!
Ah, but fools Mis-define thee, till God knows them no more. Wisdom and goodness they are God!
what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore. This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules: 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore. — Matthew Arnold

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. — Anton Chekhov

Material nature itself is constituted by three qualities: the mode of goodness, the mode of passion and the mode of ignorance. Above these modes there is eternal time, and by a combination of these modes of nature and under the control and purview of eternal time there are activities, which are called karma. — Anonymous

Fate's got a fucking sick sense of humor. Fate is a shape-shifter. It's the kindest and most generous entity imaginable, laying out more goodness than a person deserves, and then it shrinks and curls and forms into something grotesque. You think its one thing, but then its another. — Deb Caletti

I love Frank Capra. He believed in the goodness of people and one man's ability to fight and often triumph. — Tom Shadyac

Love is there when one lives in the beauty and goodness of others. — Debasish Mridha

Nothing easier than to confuse busyness with goodness. — Mason Cooley

Religion is rather the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being. — F.H. Bradley

If good people would make their goodness agreeable, and smile instead of frowning in their virtue, how many would they win to the good cause. — James Ussher

Certainly, goodness and mercy will stay close to me all the days of my life, and I will remain in the LORD'S house for days without end. Psalm 23:5-6 — Linda Washington

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth. — Leo Tolstoy

Unless it's out of the goodness of someone's heart, I don't like having things given to me for free. I like working hard for what I earn. It gives me a sense of gratitude, and that's the only way I can truly appreciate it. — Sasha Azevedo

God whose gifts in gracious flood
Unto all who seek are sent,
Only asks you to be good
And is content. — Victor Hugo

When beauty is defined, illusions of non-beauty manifest
When goodness is identified, badness becomes an option — Lao-Tzu

God dispenses his goodness not with an eyedropper but a fire hydrant. Your heart is a Dixie cup, and his grace is the Mediterranean Sea. You simply can't contain it all. So let it bubble over. Spill out. Pour forth. And enjoy the flood. — Max Lucado

What will it cost [a person] to be a true Christian? It will cost him his self-righteousn ess. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness. He must be content to go to heaven as a poor sinner, saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of another. — J.C. Ryle

Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where that genius lives." The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command. She raised her eyes and said: "In Heaven!" Such simplicity baffled him. — Gaston Leroux

Have you ever considered another type of loneliness; a good and healthy, happy loneliness? — Bryant McGill

It was not just the drink, though, that was making me happy, but the tenderness of things, the simple goodness of the world. This sunset, for instance, how lavishly it was laid on, the clouds, the light on the sea, that heartbreaking, blue-green distance, laid on, all of it, as if to console some lost suffering waybarer. I have never really got used to being on this earth. Somethings I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was meant to contain us? — John Banville

People forget your goodness; teach thing something so they can always remember. — M.F. Moonzajer

That's the way life works: gratitude and appreciation just bring more goodness. Remember: Everything we give out comes back. Gratitude has all sorts of little, surprising rewards. — Louise Hay

Gratitude is continuous stream of goodness. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Emil was already familiar with those people who always say, "Goodness, everything was better in the old days." And he no longer listened when people told him that in the old days the air was cleaner or that cows had bigger heads. Because it usually wasn't true. Those people simply wanted to be dissatisfied, because otherwise they would have to be satisfied. — Erich Kastner

For as much as to understand and to be mighty are great qualities, the higher that they be, they are so much the less to be esteemed if goodness also abound not in the possessor. — Philip Sidney

You might have thought that a world such as ours, so hard-nosed and cynical and brash, would have very little time for transcendence, spiritual values of goodness and compassion, gentleness, and caring, but we actually do experience them. — Desmond Tutu

It is easy to love friends and sweethearts. This is selfish love. Higher love embraces enemies and all ugly, bad people. The highest love doesn't see goodness or badness at all. One should even love warmongers, bad food producers and priests. — Michio Kushi

Sure, I buried it. I buried it and buried it and turned away from everything light and sweet and delicate and lovely and became so scared and scarred and burdened and fucked up. But that goodness is there, inside - it must be. — Nic Sheff

,,,we forget our good actions only slowly, and in fact never truly forget them. — Machado De Assis

They don't go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop. More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of the brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? — Anthony Burgess

Before entering into any kind of intimate relationships, whether friendship, familial re-connection, or romance, the idea of "needing" or "being needed" must be eliminated. It's harmful to me and others. Need is no kind of foundation for anything. Rather, I choose to be wanted. "Want" is a deliberate choice. Wanting is not based in fear or ego (which are one in the same, I believe). Want comes from recognition of someone else's goodness and loving them for it. Being wanted is unconditional. It does not require emotional games be played, it does not require reparations be made or obligations be met. Being wanted is good, in and of itself. — Jennifer DeLucy

No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way. — Anne Lamott

sweetness on the tongue and a promise of scent on the night air. It was sensual in the best meaning of that word, saturating every sense at once, so that the flesh was known, finally, as a thing of such goodness that man blessed his Creator from morning to night for having made him. Here in this medieval town where once an extraordinary little fellow had burst forth with songs to God, as a passionate lover speaks to his bride, here the restoration of man to his own true home was no longer the dream of saints. It was the wedding feast. It was a word made flesh. — Michael D. O'Brien

But for goodness sake, Frank - forget you're an engineer, and simply enjoy the view. — Arthur C. Clarke

Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future. — Walt Kelly

A good man enlarges the term of his own existence. — Martial

There are abusive individuals whose worst little demons are greed, sloth,envy, gluttony, pride and wrath enslaved by their god which is money. They usually set their false assumptions, wrong judgments, gossips and lies forceful than the ones who hold the truth but what they missed out is that the victims of their aggressions, the targets of their wrong accusations and the recipients of their repetitive harassments carry what is truly essential and what lives longer, that is: truth and goodness, both of which shall always prevail against their vicious, evil manners. — Angelica Hopes

Goodness gracious! - What's that? It's the clock striking! And here I've been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped me... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady's feet, every night, just the same. And she says, "Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and wake early!" I don't know what I should do if she didn't say that, now. ... — Katherine Mansfield

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

The modern instinct is that if the heart of man is evil, there is nothing that remains good. But the older feeling was that if the heart of man was ever so evil, there was something that remained good
goodness remained good. — G.K. Chesterton

Without moral progress, stimulated by faith in God, immorality in all its forms will proliferate and strangle goodness and human decency. Mankind will not be able to fully express the potential nobility of the human soul unless faith in God is strengthened. — James E. Faust

When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. — Jason Evert

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery. — W.B.Yeats

Goodness, beauty, truthfulness, honesty, and being virtuous are the essence of the world. Whatever happens, the world will one day find this essence, for no one can prevent such an event — M. Fethullah Gulen

No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better - because your job is to try to help everybody else get better. — Jim Yong Kim

We packed
whole lives into bundles in search
of what chooses us, what wants to come
back to the surface, what needs to be said.
We had so many dreams
we didn't know what to make of them. — Helene Cardona

Schultz is not a Nazi. I see Schultz as the representative of some kind of goodness in any generation. — John Banner

And now because you are His child, live as a child of God; be redeemed from the life of evil, which is false to your nature, into the life of goodness, which is the truth of your being. Scorn all that is mean; hate all that is false; struggle with all that is impure Live the simple, lofty life which befits an heir of immortality. — Frederick William Robertson

Thankfulness to God is a recognition that God in His goodness and faithfulness has provided for us and cared for us, both physically and spiritually. It is a recognition that we are totally dependent upon Him; that all that we are and have comes from God. — Jerry Bridges

Thank goodness we don'y meet many people like [Miss Trunchbull] in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush
climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away. — Roald Dahl

Beloved, God has never failed to act but in goodness and love. When all means fail-his love prevails. Hold fast to your faith. Stand fast in his Word. There is no other hope in this world. — David Wilkerson

Of course it does not apply to me. I am the soul of honor, kindness, mercy and goodness. Trust me in all things. — Roger Zelazny

Who sings of all of Love's eternity
Who shines so bright
In all the songs of Love's unending spells?
Holy lightning strikes all that's evil
Teaching us to love for goodness sake.
Hear the music of Love Eternal
Teaching us to reach for goodness sake. — Jon Anderson