Goodness Quotes

He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars.

~ Anonymous

General good is the plea of the scoundrel hypocite flatterer.

~ William Blake

The word 'good' has many meanings. For example if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards I should call him a good shot but not necessarily a good man.

~ G. K. Chesterton

I expect to pass though this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to my fellow-creature let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.

~ Stephen Grellet

Pity costs nothin' and ain't worth nothin'.

~ Josh Billings

That best portion of a good man's life His little nameless unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.

~ William Wordsworth

There is no man so good who were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving mercy?

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When thou doest alms do not let thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.

~ Bible

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

~ Brooks Thomas

Be good sweet maid and let who can be clever.

~ Charles Kingsley

Good things are not done in a hurry.

~ German Proverb

Be charitable and indulgent to every one but thyself.

~ Joseph Joubert

We are all here on earth to help others what on earth the others are here for I don't know.

~ W. H. Auden

Why is it that when people have no capacity for private usefulness they should be so anxious to serve the public?

~ Sara Jeannette Duncan

I have found men more kind than I expected and less just.

~ Samuel Johnson

Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?

~ Samuel Johnson

There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it's rather hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us.

~ Sign In Springdalea

Good men need no recommendation and bad men it wouldn't help.

~ Jewish Proverb

Real unselfishness consists in sharing the interests of others.

~ George Santayana

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you're naturally kind you attract a lot of people you don't like.

~ William Feather

The good should be grateful to the bad - for providing the world with a basis for comparison.

~ Sven Halla

All strangers and beggars are from Zeus and a gift though small is precious.

~ Homer

Behold! I do not give lectures on a little charity. When I give I give myself.

~ Walt Whitman

If a friend is in trouble don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.

~ Edgar Watson Howe

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident.

~ Charles Lamb

As Charles Lamb says there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident so I now say it is even nicer to make heroic decisions and to be prevented by 'circumstances beyond your control' from ever trying to execute them.

~ William James

Giving is the highest expression of potency.

~ Erich Fromm

If I knew ... that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good I should run for my life.

~ Henry David Thoreau

If I've learned anything in my seventy years it's that nothing's as good or as bad as it appears.

~ Bushrod H. Campbell

The Devil himself is good when he is pleased.

~ Thomas Fuller

Wise men appreciate all men for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good.

~ Baltasar Gracián

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactor.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

~ Charles Dudley Warner

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness unless he has the strength of character to be wicked. All other goodness is generally nothing but indolence or impotence of will.

~ La Rochefoucauld

We know the good we apprehend it clearly. But we can't bring it to achievement.

~ Euripides

Generosity is the vanity of giving.

~ La Rochefoucauld

My only policy is to profess evil and do good.

~ George Bernard Shaw