Very Good Lives Quotes & Sayings

The adults said the only good food was the bacon, but the kids knew better. They had never had a more fun breakfast in their lives. Although they had to agree the bacon was very good. Then again, it was bacon. It was always good. — Ella Minster

I think we live our lives in other people's hearts and minds. Alone by ourselves we're not very much good at all. But when we let someone else in with their stories and all their sights and sounds and songs and smells and sensations, we suddenly start building up libraries, filling boxes and drawers with them, books and shelves and chests... — Elliot Mabeuse

Grieving the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). Our anger grieves God's Spirit, not only producing bitter fruit but quenching the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Rather than operating with love, joy, and peace toward others, a bitter person becomes hateful, negative, and restless, closing off his heart toward others. Bitter people become very unlike themselves. The most loving and joyful people in the world can become hateful, irrational pessimists if they let bitterness take root and don't forgive. Believe it or not, bitterness even hurts us physically. "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22). The tension of trying to contain it can harden our facial features and make us lose the radiance of our countenance, even causing a chemical imbalance in our bodies and lowering our resistance to disease. — Stephen Kendrick

The coffee served in the coffeehouses wasn't necessarily very good coffee. Because of the way coffee was taxed in Britain (by the gallon), the practice was to brew it in large batches, store it cold in barrels, and reheat it a little at a time for serving. So coffee's appeal in Britain had less to do with being a quality beverage than with being a social lubricant. People went to coffeehouses to meet people of shared interests, gossip, read the latest journals and newspapers - a brand-new word and concept in the 1660s - and exchange information of value to their lives and business. Some took to using coffeehouses as their offices - as, most famously, at Lloyd's Coffee House on Lombard Street, which gradually evolved into Lloyd's insurance market. — Bill Bryson

There are plenty of examples of people who have had busy lives out there in the world, trying to do good, and written very well at the same time. — Andrew Motion

After that, things happened very quickly. She gave me a key to her house, and I gave her a key to my apartment. If we were in town, we spent every weekend together. She cooked for me - she was good in the kitchen, but then she was good everywhere. We watched the Friday night fights on TV, and on Saturday or Sunday afternoons we'd go for long walks in the mountains above Malibu. Occasionally we would go to a movie, slipping in after the lights went down. Whenever we went out, Barbara [Stanwyck] would wear a scarf over her head, or a kind of hat, so it would be hard to tell who she was. For the next four years, we became part of each other's lives. In a very real way, I think we still are. Barbara proved to be one of the most marvelous relationships of my life. I was twenty-two, she was forty-five, but our ages were beside the point. She was everything to me - a beautiful woman with a great sense of humor and enormous accomplishments to her name. — Robert Wagner

A house takes on the characteristics of its occupant, and, depending on who lives in it, it can become a very good house or a very strange house. — Kyung-Sook Shin

A good team was simply a group of very disparate athletes who assembled each day from radically different lives and - with luck - for one shared moment put aside their differences, their dislikes, their egos and their rivalries, harnessing their energies towards a common goal. — David Halberstam

There is a lovely feature of the American psyche which rejects the notion that there are victims. In America, attitude is a magical elixir that cures everything. People are supposed to believe that they create their realities, and are solely responsible for every aspect of their lives. Everything is because of a choice you made somewhere. Somehow, you were supposed to not only be equipped to make the right choice at all times, despite your circumstances, but to know exactly what the outcome of every choice you made would be. This is all very convenient for the people at the top of our economic system with all the money and the power. Keeps the rest of us trying. — Carl-John X. Veraja

I write music, and I want people to listen to it and care about it and have it make some difference in their lives. When I'm fortunate for that to happen, then of course I feel very, very good about it. — Steve Reich

We are visitors on this planet. We are here for one hundred years at the very most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. if you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true meaning of life. — Dalai Lama XIV

No good thing is ever lost. Nothing dies, not even life which gives up one form only to resume another. No good action, no good example dies. It lives forever in our race. While the frame moulders and disappears, the deed leaves an indelible stamp, and molds the very thought and will of future generations. — Samuel Smiles

What tormented Ivan Ilyich most," Tolstoy writes, "was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and he only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result." Ivan Ilyich has flashes of hope that maybe things will turn around, but as he grows weaker and more emaciated he knows what is happening. He lives in mounting anguish and fear of death. But death is not a subject that his doctors, friends, or family can countenance. That is what causes him his most profound pain. — Atul Gawande

Writing for the sake of writing, writing that draws its credibility from its very existence, is a foreign idea to most Americans. As a culture, we want cash on the barrel head. We want writing to earn dollars and sense so that it makes sense to us. We have a conviction - which is naive and misplaced - that being published has to do with being "good" while not being published has to do with being "amateur." ...
"Did you write today?"
"Yes."
"Then you're a writer today."
It would be lovely if being a writer were a permanent state that we could attain to. It's not, or if it is, the permanence comes posthumously.
A page at a time, a day at a time, is the way we must live our writing lives. Credibility lies in the act of writing. That is where the dignity is. That is where the final "credit" must come from. — Julia Cameron

I don't think many people have a very good understanding of leisure and the importance it plays in our lives. — Jack Nicholson

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia - that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone. — Noam Chomsky

All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure. — Lydia M. Child

Yes, sir, but the Librarian likes bananas, sir."
"Very nourishin' fruit, Mr Stibbons."
"Yes, sir. Although, funnily enough it's not actually a fruit, sir."
"Really?"
"Yes, sir. Botanically, it's a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it's cladistically associated with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals."
"And lives in trees?"
"Well, not usually, sir. The banana is obviously exploiting a new niche."
"Good heavens, really? It's a funny thing, but I've never much liked bananas and I've always been a bit suspicious of fish, too. That'd explain it. — Terry Pratchett

Fredkin believes that the universe is very literally a computer and that it is being used by someone, or something, to solve a problem. It sounds like a good-news/bad-news joke: the good news is that our lives have purpose; the bad news is that their purpose is to help some remote hacker estimate pi to nine jillion decimal places. — Ray Kurzweil

There are plenty of people in the world whose lives are governed by rote and routine. Such people will never be happy dealing with me, because I don't conform. Luckily, the world is also full of people who care about results, and those people are usually very happy with me, because my Asperger's compels me to be the ultimate expert in whatever field of interest I choose. And with substantial knowledge, I can obtain good results. — John Elder Robison

I'm very tired of staring out into your vacant faces looking back at me. Wanting to fill your empty lives with humor you couldn't possibly think of yourself ... Good evening! — Bill Hicks

The people in Iraq lived essentially good lives. They had brilliant health and education systems. Saddam actually created an incredible infrastructure in a very difficult country, but they were a Mafia family. If you said anything against that regime or that family you would be killed instantly. — Dominic Cooper

According to the New Testament, the 'good news' is that a unique God-man has come to earth, revealed himself to the world, and offered to save all those who dedicate their lives to him. This only counts as good news, however, if you also believe in some very bad news: that human beings need to be saved from something, and are incapable of saving themselves. The more you emphasize the unique and indispensable role of the God-man, the church that bears his name, and those who speak on his behalf, the more you need there to be a problem so serious that only they can put it right. — Linda Woodhead

The saying goes that history repeats itself; personal histories do the same. We can gather the lessons of others' lives through observation, conversation, and by seeking advice. We can use the automatic system to find out who the happy people are, and the reflective system to evaluate how they got to be that way. Pursuing happiness need not be a lonely endeavor. In fact, throwing in our lot with others may be a very good way of coping with the disappointments of choice. — Sheena Iyengar

Normal people, who can be good people but do bad things, are very interesting to me, and people that never get a parking ticket or never do a bad thing in their lives can be really dangerous. — Emily Mortimer

So given a Time-Turner, I'd tell my 21 self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or archievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life. — J.K. Rowling

Next time you face the unexpected, a moment of difficulty you really don't want to go through, remember that such a moment doesn't picture a God who has forgotten you, but one who is near to you and doing in you a very good thing. He is rescuing you from thinking that you can live the life you were meant to live while relying on the inadequate resources of your wisdom, experience, righteousness, and strength; and he is transforming you into a person who lives a life shaped by radical God-centered faith. — Paul David Tripp

Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist interpretations of scripture. Many people have little or no knowledge of scripture at all. Many others who have more knowledge choose to interpret what they know in ways that are convenient, or that fit their own moral sense of what is good. Still others view their religion as a kind of self-accepted ethnicity, but live lives utterly divorced from any sense of faith. — Mohsin Hamid

The honey doesn't taste so good once it is being eaten; the goal doesn't mean so much once it is reached; the reward is no so rewarding once it has been given. If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won't have very much. But if we add up the spaces *between* the rewards, we'll come up with quite a bit. And if we add up the rewards *and* the spaces, then we'll have everything - every minute of the time that we spent. — Benjamin Hoff

I have seen many cases like N. during the five years I've been in practice. I sometimes picture these unfortunates as men and women being pecked to death by predatory birds. The birds are invisible - at least until a psychiatrist who is good, or lucky, or both, sprays them with his version of Luminol and shines the right light on them - but they are nevertheless very real. The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands ... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh. — Stephen King

I want to be a hero, a small and good kind of hero, even though I know heroes have very short lives. — Boris Becker

Responding to bereavement by trying to make a difference is certainly both understandable and admirable, but it doesn't give you good reason to raise money for one specific cause of death rather than any other. If that person had died in different circumstances it would have been no less tragic. What we care about when we lose someone close to us is that they suffered or died, not that they died from a specific cause. By all means, the sadness we feel at the loss of a loved one should be harnessed in order to make the world a better place. But we should focus that motivation on preventing death and improving lives per se, rather than preventing death and improving lives in one very specific way. Any other decision would be unfair on those we could have helped more. — William MacAskill

The great thing about it is, in Hollywood, certain people are very good at keeping their lives and who they are very private. I've never met anybody as down to earth and cool in Hollywood than Matt Damon. — Anthony Mackie

We need to say that women have sex, have abortions, are at peace with the decision and move on with their lives. We need to say that is their right, and, moreover, it's good for everyone that they have this right: The whole society benefits when motherhood is voluntary. When we gloss over these truths we unintentionally promote the very stigma we're trying to combat. — Katha Pollitt

I like "God Give Me the Strength" very much. It's not really a blues and to call it a ballad is absurd. I don't know, its mid-tempo. Mark (St. John) actually wrote it and I think its very telling of our lives in the 60s. Its just a good song, ya know ... — Dick Taylor

Well, there it is. It's about what we went for. We found, as we had suspected, that the Russian people are people, and, as with other people, that they are very nice. The ones we met had a hatred of war, they wanted the same things all people want - good lives, increased comfort, security, and peace. We know that this journal will not be satisfactory either to the ecclesiastical Left, nor the lumpen Right. The first will say it is anti-Russian, and the second that it is pro-Russian. Surely it is superficial, and how could it be otherwise? We have no conclusions to draw, except that Russian people are like all other people in the world. Some bad ones there are surely, but by far the greater number are very good. — John Steinbeck

Truthfulness is the golden thread that binds good lives, good relationships, and our very legacy. — John Manning

I feel very silly saying to you, Tell me all about yourself, but I wish you would. I want to get to know you.
That's not how you get to know people. Don't you know? You can't talk it out, you've got to live into their lives, bad and good. You'll know me soon enough. What I want you to know. — Katherine Paterson

Mansoor had seen Vikas Uncle's movies before and had never cared for them. They were serious, stiff, shot in black-and-white, the characters speaking crisp English. Nothing good happened to anyone. People lived enclosed middle-class lives, taunting each other with petty memories, and women and men argued incessantly. "They're so joyless," he had told his mother, wondering at how tragic Vikas Uncle's sensibility had been even before the blast - it was as if he were sitting at a ceremonial fire, fanning a tragedy toward himself. "But they are very acclaimed," his mother had said reverently. — Karan Mahajan

Count yourself lucky. I watched my entire family as they were eaten alive by the very pack of animals you have downstairs in your house with your child. The blood of my parents flowed from their bodies through the floorboards and drenched me while I lay in terror of being torn apart by them. I was only a year older than your child when it happened. My parents gave their lives for mine and I watched as they gave them. So you'll have to excuse me if I have a hard time thinking good of any animal except those who are dead or caged. (Angelia) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

There will be a time when love is beautiful and passionate and nothing else will exist but you and the person you love, and a time when love hurts so badly that you will wish you wouldn't wake up. I say this. Always, always, always approach love with the heart of the angel you were born with. Never become bitter and always know that pain goes away. Marry for love. But also choose to marry a man or woman who you love that treats you with the ultimate respect for your expression of who you are at your very core. Always see the good, appreciate every moment and remember that love lives on forever. — Julieanne O'Connor

The outrageous madonna/whore duality that we mock in Women's Studies 101 has its subtle, and very insidious, expression in the good/bad mother paradigm that we grapple with every day of our lives. — Shannon Drury

The issue is fear. But the deeper issue is trust. Can we trust our lives, our futures, and the lives of those we love to God? Can we trust a God we can't control? Can we trust this God whose take on life and death and suffering and joy is so very different from our own? Yes. Yes, we can. Because we know him. And we know he is good. — Stasi Eldredge

For hundreds of thousands of years, life was brutal. It still is for a good chunk of the planet. The technology and wealth we enjoy in North America is a very new development in history, and I think we miss the challenges of day-to-day survival in our comparatively easy modern lives. Some people will even create problems if they have none. — Jeff Carlson

I was blessed with good genetics, but my essence is very happy and warm and I don't take my job too seriously. I'm not saving lives here. — Miranda Kerr

We can't pray that God make our lives free of problems; this won't happen, and it is probably just as well. We can't ask Him to make us and those we love immune to diseases, because He can't do that. We can't ask Him to weave a magic spell around us so that bad things will only happen to other people, and never to us.
People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles, any more than children who pray for bicycles, good grades, or good boyfriends get them as a result of praying. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of they have lost, very often find their prayer answered. — Harold S. Kushner

"Understand the process of the ego. How does the ego live? The ego lives in the tension between what you are and what you want to be. A wants to be B - the ego is created out of this very tension. How does the ego die? The ego dies by you accepting what you are. That you say, "I am fine as I am, where I am is good. I will remain just as existence keeps me. Its will is my will." — Rajneesh

Usually, when you get early versions of scripts, they are not very good. I found 'Borgen' amazing from the very first read-through because of how fast-paced and gripping it was. It felt more international because of the way it didn't dwell on the characters' personal lives as many Danish shows used to, but still, nobody thought it would travel. — Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

Reluctantly Bastian's thoughts turned back to reality. He was glad the Neverending Story had nothing to do with that.
He didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people. Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it? Besides, he couldn't stand it when a writer tried to convince him of something. And these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that.
Bastian liked books that were exciting or funny, or that made him dream. Books where made-up characters had marvelous adventures, books that made him imagine all sorts of things.
Because one thing he was good at, possibly the only thing, was imagining things so clearly that he almost saw and heard them. — Michael Ende

But the fact that, by 2012, one in thirty-five Dutch people sought assisted suicide at their death is not a measure of success. It is a measure of failure. Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end. The Dutch have been slower than others to develop palliative care programs that might provide for it. One reason, perhaps, is that their system of assisted death may have reinforced beliefs that reducing suffering and improving lives through other means is not feasible when one becomes debilitated or seriously ill. — Atul Gawande

However, to be a coach I think you have to have a lot of patience. You have to understand what they have going on in their lives and it's a very rewarding career but you also need to know that your not going to get paid a ton of money and you have to be patient with people and a good listener. — Robin Farina

The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions. — Thomas More

The spirit of Christmas lives with us. We are the protectors of the real tradition of Christmas-peace on Earth and Goodwill to all. We are the hope of Man-the only hope. Mankind's salvation lies within our hands. With our tech and ability we can create here on Earth a real heaven where men can be free. In our hands lies the power to restore to Man his determinism and all that he finds good in himself-his honesty, his integrity, and the thrill of being of real help to others. A very Merry Christmas to you all and a bright friendly new year. — L. Ron Hubbard

But what does it mean to be on God's side? I believe it starts with focusing on the common good - not just in politics, but in all the decisions we make in our personal, family, vocational, financial, communal, and, public lives. That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths - love your neighbor as yourself - still the most transformational ethic in history. — Jim Wallis

I do think there is evil. But it is very rare. It is as rare as true goodness. And just as true goodness produces rare saints, true evil produces rare monsters. The rest of us are semi-good, semi-bad, and we live our lives in a kind of half-happy, half-sad daze. We might hope that one sunny morning we find ourselves in the presence of a saint. And we must pray that we do not encounter the monster. — David Almond

Tukum is at times forgetful about his pigs, being readily distracted by other children, dragonflies, puddles of water, and wild foods.
Nevertheless, Tukem is a very proud little boy, and since his nami lives Lukigin, where his mother has already gone, he has decided to go away for good. This morning he put on his thin neck the cowrie collar with its brief string of shells which is his sole belonging, he smeared his body with pig grease until it shone, in order to make a fine impression at Lukigin ... Then he set off alone on the long journey in the sun across the woods and fields, a small brown figure with a flat head and pot belly. His back was turned on Wuperainma, his pigs and his friends, his childhood, and he clutched a frail stick in his hand. — Peter Matthiessen

Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you,
and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue
the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures!
I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment
and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable
of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal
to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance,
so long as
if I may be allowed the expression
so long as you have
an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you.
All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one;
you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence
or when hope is gone. — Jane Austen

I'm of the opinion that many Christians are in deep denial about the reality of there being 'real' Evil in this world. Evil that cannot be reasoned with; is reprobate, incorrigible, determined, un-appeasable, violent, murderous, and unrelenting. I find this denial shocking in that the Bible clearly shows that in the end this battle is all about Good vs. Evil. This is a very real and present danger to the leaders and people of Israel. They know the truth and are not in any denial about it!!! It's harsh, yes! However, it is Real and a danger to those in Israel. This is not my first rodeo!!! Combat brings me no joy!!! But, God has His holy warriors who risk their lives so others can have the luxury to live in denial!!! Israeli's have no such luxury!!! — R. Alan Woods

The gospel of the Savior is not simply about avoiding bad in our lives; it also is essentially about doing and becoming good. And the Atonement provides help for us to overcome and avoid bad and to do and become good. Help from the Savior is available for the entire journey of mortality - from bad to good to better and to change our very nature. — David A. Bednar

Authors may have very good reasons for staying out of character's minds. What is in their mind ought to be out in the world of their action anyway, just as in Real Life. Inside is already out there, and visible. It is also a reader's responsibility to imaginatively project the inner-lives of characters just as we have to imaginatively project the inner-lives of those most dear to us in Real Life. — Nathan "N.R." Gaddis

The way we deal with death depends on how it's imagined for us beforehand, by our parents and the people who surround them, and what happens to us early on.[ ... ] Instead, we believe the lie, that death, unlike taxes, can be postponed indefinitely, and we spend our lives defending that belief. Some people are very good at it, and they become our nation's heroes. Some, like me, see the lie early for what it is, fake it for a while and grow bitter, and then go beyond bitterness to ... to what? To this, I suppose. Cowardice. Adulthood. — Russell Banks

There is a lot of negativity and bad habits that just need to be cut out of our lives. Sometimes we hold on tightly to the things that are actually causing us a lot of pain. We are our own worst enemy. We cling to all the wrong things. We subconsciously do things that are very bad for us, the worst being that we tell ourselves every day that "we're not good enough" and "it's our fault". Well cut it out! — S.R. Crawford

If you take any flower you please and look it over and turn it about and smell it and feel it and try to find out all its little secrets, not of flower only but of leaf, bud and stem as well, you will discover many wonderful things. This is how you make friends with plants, and very good friends you will find them to the end of our lives. — Gertrude Jekyll

He has demonstrated how the very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world ended up resulting in the very best thing that has ever happened in the history of the world." "What do you mean? "I'm referring to dei-cide," he replied. "The death of God himself on the cross. At the time, nobody saw how anything good could ever result from this tragedy. And yet God foresaw that the result would be the opening of heaven to human beings. So the worst tragedy in history brought about the most glorious event in history. And if it happened there - if the ultimate evil can result in the ultimate good - it can happen elsewhere, even in our own individual lives. Here, God lifts the curtain and lets us see it. Elsewhere he simply says, 'Trust me. — Lee Strobel

The engineer and historian of engineering Henry Petroski presents a very elegant point. Had the Titanic not had that famous accident, as fatal as it was, we would have kept building larger and larger ocean liners and the next disaster would have been even more tragic. So the people who perished were sacrificed for the greater good; they unarguably saved more lives than were lost. The story of the Titanic illustrates the difference between gains for the system and harm to some of its individual parts. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

All that happens in our lives which we find painful, physically or emotionally, is for a purpose. Unfortunately, from our very limited perspective it is often not possible to see the good in it. The divine plan is not available to our eyes. — Robert S. Jepson Jr.

That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives - most natives in the world - cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go - so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself. — Jamaica Kincaid

That's very good thinking, you know. Turn on the Improbability Drive for a second without first activating the proofing screens. Hey, kid, you just saved our lives, you know that?" "Oh," said Arthur, "well, it was nothing really ... ." "Was it?" said Zaphod. "Oh well, forget it then. Okay, computer, take us in to land." "But ... " "I said forget it. — Douglas Adams

You can't travel the back roads very long without discovering a multitude of gentle people doing good for others with no expectation of gain or recognition. The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines. Some people out there spend their whole lives selflessly. — Charles Kuralt

He saw that at its center were Coretta and Yoki, unharmed. And then, having made sure of that, Martin Luther King became very calm, with what Branch calls "the remote calm of a commander." Stepping back out on the porch, he held up his hand for silence. Everything was all right, he told the crowd. "Don't get panicky. Don't do anything panicky. Don't get your weapons. If you have weapons, take them home. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what Jesus said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love." The crowd was silent now, as King continued speaking. He himself might die, he said, but that wouldn't matter. "If I am stopped, this movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we are doing is right. What we are doing is just. — Robert A. Caro

Without out suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the Redemption. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty, but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed. And we must share it, for only by being one with them can we redeem them by bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God. — Mother Teresa

Do you realize that our whole lives, every decision we've made, all the roads we've chosen - good, bad, big and small - everything has led us to this very moment in time? — Con Template

There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That's a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us. It is the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

He says, "We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. Try to be at peace with yourself, and help others share that peace. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Because we can engineer genetics, because we can telecast real lives-of course we must, right? But are these good things to do? The irony is, the people who will finally answer that question will be the very ones produced by the process. — Roger Ebert

Feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable. - Every consideration of the subject, in short, makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved. - I shall do very well again after a little while - and then, it will be a good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives, and I shall have been let off easily. When — Jane Austen

Everybody's got skeletons in the closets. Every once in a while, you've got to open up the closet and the let the skeletons breathe. Half the time, the very thing you think is gonna destroy you or ruin you is the very thing that nobody cares about. My advice to people with skeletons is to dust them off every now and then
as long as your closet's aint full of them. It's not good to have more than two or three. — Tyler Perry

Successful leaders are like icebergs. When you look at an iceberg, you see only about 10 percent of it, and the rest of it is hidden under the water. When you look at successful leaders, you see only a fraction of their lives. You see the part that looks really good, but there's usually a lot that remains hidden that's neither exciting nor glamorous. Tennis star Arthur Ashe said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever the cost." True leadership is the same. — John C. Maxwell

Man searches constantly for identity, he thought as he trotted along the gravel path. He has no real proof of this existence except for the reaction of other people to that fact. So he listens very closely to what people say to one another about him, whether it's good or bad, because it indicates that he lives in the same world they do, and that all his fears about being invisible, impotent, lacking some mysterious dimension that other people have, are groundless. — Peter S. Beagle

We really feel very humbled that we are a part of so many lives around the globe and that we can help connect people from everywhere with and through our music. My experiences with fans are mostly wonderful and I am always so grateful when I see what kind of positive effect our music has on people. All of our fan experiences are memorable in different way, but it is especially powerful and meaningful when you can feel that someone is really inspired with what you are doing. This is especially true for the young generation. It feels good to know that we can get these kids to pick up classical instruments and see them as instruments they can rock on. — Luka Sulic

Managers who inspire extraordinary loyalty from their people tend to be highly charismatic, humorous, good-looking, and tall. So, by all means, strive to be those things. If you don't feel able to improve any of those factors very much, you might consider holding on to your people by designing a little slack into their lives. — Tom DeMarco

There are people who are very good at disconnecting themselves and becoming other people, and separating from their family lives and going on. They change their names, they become someone else entirely, maybe out west. — Marco Roth

Whatever variety evolution brings forth ... Every new dimension of world-response ... means another modality for God's trying out his hidden essence and discovering himself through the surprises of world-adventure ... the heightening pitch and passion of life that go with the twin rise of perception and motility in animals. The ever more sharpened keenness of appetite and fear, pleasure and pain, triumph and anguish, love and even cruelty - their very edge is the deity's gain. Their countless, yet never blunted incidence - hence the necessity of death and new birth - supplies the tempered essence from which the Godhead reconstitutes itself. All this, evolution provides in the mere lavishness of its play and sternness of its spur. Its creatures, by merely fulfilling themselves in pursuit of their lives, vindicate the divine venture. Even their suffering deepens the fullness of the symphony. Thus, this side of good and evil, God cannot lose in the great evolutionary game. — Hans Jonas

The same principle held in black universities, where students demanded more and more black teachers. White professors who had virtually dedicated their lives and their academic careers as historians, anthropologists, sociologists, to the problems of racism and its cures, thinking they did this for the good of the oppressed victims of racism (and often suffering social and academic insults as a result), were asked to leave schools in favor of black teachers. Some of them turned very bitter. — John Howard Griffin

If you have a regulation that's going to save hundreds of thousands of lives annually and not cost very much, that sounds like a very good idea. — Cass Sunstein

Good innovators typically think very big and they think very small. New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look. And they are sometimes found when you are doing your most abstract and philosophical thinking, considering why the world is the way that it is and whether there might be an alternative to the dominant paradigm. Rarely can they be found in the temperate latitudes between they two spaces, where we spend 99 percent of our lives. — Nate Silver

Richard straightened with a sigh. "People are often more willing to believe lies than truth. Lies can be made to sound pleasant. The truth, by it's very nature, isn't always so attractive."
"That leaves peaceful people no choice but to fight for their lives or fall to the blades of madmen. In such a situation, there is no middle ground. There is no such thing as compromise between civilization and savagery. Civilization must always defend itself against savagery or else fall to it."
"I guess that's our part in this?"
Richard nodded. "I've never wanted to fight, to be in a war, to see good people die, to have to kill. I just wanted to live my life in peace. Others wouldn't allow me that life of peace. The battles I fight have always been to survive and live in peace, not to conquer. — Terry Goodkind

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. — Richard Dawkins

The fact that a good poem will never wholly submit to explanation is not its deficiency but its very life. One lives every day what he cannot define. It is feeling that is first. What one cannot help but sense in good poetry is a sense of the whole language stirring toward richer possibilities than one could have foreseen. — John Ciardi

People never like pollution, it has become very wrong to like pollution at all. But just like there are good and bad things about people, there are good and bad things about pollution. If people were pollution we would get rid of anyone who was different, anyone who was considered an inconvenience ... but we'd be getting rid of a life, a lot of lives ... because we didn't like them. If pollution was a person would we still be trying to get rid of it? Would we have environmentalists still complaining and protesting and trying to get rid of all pollution? — Rebecca McNutt

I don't think that the despiritualised, dehumanised culture in which we live, the McDonalds and Disney culture, does our internal lives, our mythological lives, any favours at all. In other words, to be an Outsider in this culture now is to be looking inside at a plastic world, and I think it's easier to critique that world if I don't belong to it ... In Hollywood where I live now, there's a lot of having lunches, a lot of going to parties ... and I will have no part of that. I'm certainly not very good at it, I don't like it and I feel a little weird about it. I don't want to be part of the problem, I want to be a part of the solution, and the only way I can help solve the problem of the plasticity of our world is by writing, by painting and by making my work, so I stay where I can do that, which is at my desk, in my studio. I will venture out when I need to sell a book or exhibit my paintings, but the rest of the time my job is to be here and imagine. — Clive Barker

That many good men have believed this strange fable [Christianity], and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness of the story. — Thomas Paine

When a person listens to a good song, and they can look out at the world and their lives and see the dark and the light, the negative and the positive, all the different elements, all come together in one holistic poem, that is a very healing and very reductive thing, and that's what my music is about. — Matisyahu

If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation-an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you, and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls-if you take that vow instead of the vows you've been taking-the relationship has begun on a very good note. — Neale Donald Walsch

Everyone lives through this difficult period. For the average person it's the point in his life when the demands of his own life clash most violently with the world around him, when his forward path must be fought for most bitterly. Many experience this death and rebirth, which are our destiny, only this once in their life, when childhood decays and slowly disintegrates, when all that has become dear to us is about to leave us and we suddenly feel the solitude and deathly chill of outer space around us. And very many are hung up for good on this reef and for the rest of their life cling painfully to the irretrievable past, to the dream of the lost paradise, which is the worst and most murderous of all dreams. — Hermann Hesse

One lives in the very present moment; lives intently. There is no urge to be doing: being is the highest good. — Patrick O'Brian

You had to use Gwen, Roarke would have cut her up, Ginger knows it so she'd step in then he'd keep Gwen and enjoy his shit with Ginger and if he left either of 'em breathin', they would live the rest of their lives wishin' he didn't," Hawk clipped back. Oh boy. That didn't sound good. That sounded very, very bad. That sounded get my ass to the mall instantly and buy sexy underwear as a reward for my rescue bad. — Kristen Ashley

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a ceremony celebrating Blake Hartt and Livia McHugh. Today is not the start of their lives together. It will mark the day we all stood, clapped, and gave good wishes. But their fates were destined for each other long before they even met. True love, the kind that lasts forever, is very rare indeed. It takes compromise, continued growth, and trust."
Cole paused to look from Blake to Livia and back again. "Livia and Blake have a head start on all those things," he continued. "Time has tested them already, asking a fresh love to face terrifying and life-changing tasks. These two had to find and hold onto their love, even when it felt like all was lost. — Debra Anastasia

Starting now, you're just starting to see a glimmer of what the idea of West will mean. So right now, at this age and with this visibility and with the skill sets that Kim is now giving me, I think I have a good chance of success in building something that has longevity, high integrity, high success rate, and is very fulfilling, not only for me creatively but also in adding fulfillment to people's lives. Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding magic. — Kanye West

And even when our lives are good, how do we live in joy when so many others are suffering: when crushing poverty robs people of their future, when violence and terror fill our streets, and when ecological devastation endangers the very possibility of life on our planet? — Dalai Lama XIV