Quotes About Goodness

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
― Mother Teresa

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
― Desmond Tutu

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

“When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. ”
― Mae West

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.”
― Mae West, Wit & Wisdom of Mae West

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
― Nelson Mandela

“You've a good heart. Sometimes that's enough to see you safe wherever you go. But mostly, it's not.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“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

“On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”
― George Orwell, All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays

“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“He's not safe, but he's good (referring to Aslan, the Lion, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)”
― C.S. Lewis

“You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“I want to live my life in such a way that when I get out of bed in the morning, the devil says, "aw shit, he's up!”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, The People of Sparks

“When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there. ”
― Jim Henson

“Be good and you will be lonesome.”
― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
― Martin Luther

“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

“Goodness, real goodness, has it's own sort of cruelty to it.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“What a lovely thing a rose is!"

He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.

"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty

“The most basic and somehow forgettable thing is this: Love is not pain. Love is goodness. And real love--it's less shiny than solid and simple.”
― Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming

“Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody.”
― Justin Cronin, The Summer Guest