Quotes to inspire and reflect

Living or dead, to a good man there can come no evil.

I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they

Yes, the idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn’t know any better.

A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Whatever harm the evil may do, the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.

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.

Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness. It lends grace to the sterner qualities of which this consists.

It’s easier to swoon in pious dreams / Than do good actions.

It is from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

It is a hard thing for a man / to be righteous, if the unrighteous man is to have the greater right.

Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times.

Jail doesn't teach anyone to do good, nor Siberia, but a man—yes! A man can teach another man to do good—believe me!

A good man has more hope in his death than a wicked man in his life.

Seek not good from without: seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.

Goodness that preaches undoes itself.

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

The only fault’s with time; / All men become good creatures: but so slow!

No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

May the good God pardon all good men.

Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.

[Gjoodness that comes out of hiding and assumes a public role is no longer good, but corrupt in its own terms and will carry its own corruption wherever it goes.

A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of.

Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us.

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.

The best part of health is fine disposition.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is a mere mental sport to the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains.

A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.

Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.

The apprehension of the good / Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil, as you make it.

The common people, on the whole, are still living in the world of absolute good and evil from which the intellectuals have long since escaped.

Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.

Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and God himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales, / And the good suffers while the bad prevails.

There is no such thing in man’s nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.

Nothing is good for him for whom nothing is bad.

Even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

Good and bad may not be dissevered; / There is, as there should be, a commingling.

People forget the good, because the bad has more punch.

It’s wiser being good than bad; / It’s safer being meek than fierce: / It’s fitter being sane than mad.

The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

Everyone places his good where he can and has as much of it as he can, in his own way.

Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly; and it would seem that the same is true of the good.