Goodness Quotes

The evil done by men of goodwill is the worst of all ... We have done terrible things, for the best of reasons, and that makes it worse.

~ Iain Pears

It isn’t hard to find evil in this world. Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.

~ Gregory Maguire

There is no absolute hate or evil. On the contrary hate or evil are always intimately blended with love and goodness. What causes more hate and evil is paradoxically what tends to be done in the name of love and goodness. Hence, in order to reduce hate and evil we need to be aware of love and goodness, rather than hate and evil.

~ Franco Santoro

There is always going to be evil as long as goodness lives on.

~ K. Weikel

On Virtue - Goodness is its own reward. It has to be, nothing else rewards it.

~ Marsha Hinds

Nothing is purely evil.

~ K. Weikel

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.

~ C.s. Lewis

If goodness does exist, then I'm the opposite of it. I'm evil, and I revel in it

~ Anne Rice

I saw the truth, I saw and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the ability to live on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of people.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If God were good, why would he create Rush Limbaugh?

~ Sherman Alexie

Everyone knows that evil should be avoided wherever possible, few actually know where it is possible.

~ Raheel Farooq

Progress in evil was quick and easy; Apollyon was not a chap who hid himself and he gave every assistance in his power. The growth in goodness was so slow, at times so flat, so dull, and like the White Queen one had to run so fast to stay where one was, let alone progress; and there were few men who dared to say they had found God. It was easy to be a clever sinner, for the race to an earthly visible goal was short to run, so impossibly hard to be a wise saint, with the goal set at so vast a distance from this world and clouded with such uncertainty.

~ Elizabeth Goudge

Evil is thus a kind of parasite on goodness. If there were no good by which to measure things, evil could not exist. Men sometimes forget this, and say, there is so much evil in the world that there cannot be a God. They are forgetting that, if there were no God, they would have no way of distinguishing evil from goodness. The very concept of evil admits and recognizes a Standard, a Whole, a Rule, an Order. Nobody would say that his automobile was out of order if he did not have a conception of how an automobile ought to run.

~ Fulton J. Sheen

I felt at one and the same time quite close, within reach of my hand, and yet an infinite distance away, an unknown world of goodness. Often Isa had said to me: 'You, who see nothing but evil.... You, who see evil everywhere....' It was true, and it was not true.

~ François Mauriac

It is not easy to explain why God permits evil; but it is impossible for an atheist to explain the existence of goodness. How could a spiritless, soul-less, cross-less, Godless universe become the center of faith, purity, sacrifice, and martyrdom? How can decency be the decent thing if there is no God? Since God is love, why should we be surprised that want of it should end in pain, hate, broken hearts, and war?

~ Fulton J. Sheen

Evil is predicable, Good is paradoxical.

~ Lara Biyuts

The evil in the world must not make me doubt the existence of God. There could be no evil if there were no God. Before there can be a hole in a uniform, there must be a uniform; before there is death, there must be life; before there is error, there must be truth; before there is a crime, there must be liberty and law; before there is a war, there must be peace; before there is a devil, there must be a God, rebellion against whom made the devil.

~ Fulton J. Sheen

Since man always remains free and since his freedom is always fragile, the kingdom of good will never be definitively established in this world. Anyone who promises the better world that is guaranteed to last forever is making a false promise; he is overlooking human freedom. Freedom must be constantly won over for the cause of good. Free assent to the good never exists simply by itself. If there were structures which could irrevocably guarantee a determined and good state of the world, man's freedom would be denied, and hence they would not be good structures at all.

~ Pope Benedict Xvi

And in the echo of that gladness, horror blooms within me. In its own strange way, it's a horror as deep as any I've experienced so far. I've succeeded in taking another human hostage, in making him urinate on himself. I made a plan to torture someone, and then I carried it out, and it satisfied me to do so. As much hurt and hell as the Wolfman has caused, I don't want to be his judge and jury, his jailer and tormentor. I don't want to be that person. I want to be good. I don't want to fall into a big, black pit of darkness, because what if I can't get out?

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Eventually you are answerable to yourself for your deeds. Be good and do good!

~ Harsh Agrawal

I always knew a good man should do no bad deeds, but it never occurred to me that a good man must do good deeds. He cannot just sit back and do nothing. He cannot just relax and let things happen around him. He must act or his faith is meaningless, mere words or thoughts.

~ Aleksandra Layland

Any action is good action, do what you can from where you are and build off of that action each day.

~ Mike Basevic

I would believe again if I could. In goodness. In magnificence. In simple benevolence. Yet even in these far and icy valleys, mankind is no different, just more poorly armed. Strip away psychrometer and sextant, carbines and glass plates, skin shifts and quills and painted faces, and we are the same. Quivering maws. Gluttonous. Covetous. Fearful. We say we worship. A word. A man-god. A fiery mountain. But we worship only ourselves. And we are jealous gods.

~ Eowyn Ivey

The difference between my darkness and your darkness is that I can look at my own badness in the face and accept its existence while you are busy covering your mirror with a white linen sheet. The difference between my sins and your sins is that when I sin I know I'm sinning while you have actually fallen prey to your own fabricated illusions. I am a siren, a mermaid; I know that I am beautiful while basking on the ocean's waves and I know that I can eat flesh and bones at the bottom of the sea. You are a white witch, a wizard; your spells are manipulations and your cauldron from hell yet you wrap yourself in white and wear a silver wig.

~ C. Joybell C.

When you believe you reflect what is holy and good, you can see more that is good in every stage of your life. (319)

~ Victoria Moran

In the absence of self-control, this primordial nature of the limbic brain often compels the mind to give in to evils of corruption.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Racism is not simply about one man's irrational hatred of another but his self-hatred, doubting his own moral goodness and purpose.

~ Michael R. French

If you can't be liked being kind, then be hated being cruel.

~ Joshua Teya

Support what is good and spit out what is bad. Get off of your knees and reject the role of slave to the culture of violence.

~ Bryant Mcgill

Feeling good about yourself is not the same thing as doing good. Good policy is more important than good feelings.

~ Theodore Dalrymple

...it’s so awesome to be Human; we have His ability to feel, we can choose what we want to see based on our feelings… and when we choose to see the goodness around us, we amplify it and increase it to its never-ending limits...

~ Jayendra Puri Goswami

In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.

~ Walker Percy

I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!” - The Narrator.

~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

~ Marcus Aurelius

I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go .

~ John Stuart Mill

...she thought of him as a person who did not have a normal spine, but had instead, a firm reed of goodness.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If i am asked 'what is good? my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked 'How is good to be defined?' my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it

~ G.e. Moore

...if good is defined as something else, it is then impossible either to prove that any other definition is wrong or even to deny such definition.

~ G.e. Moore