The most appalling cruelties are committed by apparently virtuous governments in expectation of a great good to come, never learning that the evil done now is the sure destroyer of the expected good.
—Katherine Anne Porter
There are no miracles. There are no trumpets, no fanfares, no absolutions.But she sees now that there are brief moments of, if not goodness, then kindness: a thoughtful gesture, a friendly word, an absence of anger now and again.
—Christiane Buuck
There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.
—Anna Sewell
That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
—Marcus Aurelius
You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't no good. There is, and lots of it, too.
—Charles Martin in Chasing Fireflies
We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know.
—W. H. Auden
Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn.
—Garrison Keillor
To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no one in his right mind will believe this.
—Albert Camus
Let us not paralyze our capacity for good by brooding overman's capacity for evil.
—David Sarnoff
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and really being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
—Oscar Wilde
Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.
—Plato
There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just means you love them.
—Laurell K. Hamilton in Incubus Dreams
There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.
—Patrick Ness in A Monster Calls
Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.
—Rita Mae Brown
Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
—John D. Rockefeller