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What makes men good is held by some to be nature, by others habit or training, by others instruction. As for the goodness that comes by nature, this is plainly not within our control, but is bestowed by some divine agency on certain people who truly deserve to be called fortunate.—ARISTOTLE, Nicomachean Ethics
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Goodness is easier to recognize than to define; only the greatest novelists can portray good people.—W. H. AUDEN, I Believe
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It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.—CICERO
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Good Will is the mightiest practical force in the universe.—C. F. DOLE
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Look round the habitable world: how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.—DRYDEN, Juvenal
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When good men die their goodness does not perish,
But lives though they are gone. As for the bad,
All that was theirs dies, and is buried with them.—EURIPIDES, Temenidae
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Men don't become good by being kept in cotton-wool, but by fighting difficulties and temptations.—J. B. S. HALDANE, I Believe
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He is so good that no one can be a better man.—HORACE, Satires
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Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.—HORACE
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Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.—CHARLES KINGSLEY, A Farewell
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The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.—CHARLES LAMB
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Abash'd the devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely.—MILTON, Paradise Lost
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Good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows.—MILTON, Paradise Lost
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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.—MONTAIGNE, Essays
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The good you do is not lost, though you forget it.—Proverb
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If they say you are good, ask yourself if it be true.—Proverb
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It is goodness, not greatness, that will do thee good.—Proverb
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Gude fowk are scarce, tak' care o' ane.—Proverb
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Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names.—Proverb
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Do all you can to be good, and you'll be so.—Proverb
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Concealed goodness is a sort of vice.—Proverb
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It is not nor it cannot come to good.—SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
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There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
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The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.—SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
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They say best men are moulded out of faults
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.—SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
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How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.—SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
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Are you Good men and true?—SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
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He hath a daily beauty in his life.—SHAKESPEARE, Othello
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Who does not befriend himself
By doing good?—SOPHOCLES, Oedipus Coloneus
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We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of goodness in things evil," but very generally a soul of truth in things erroneous.—HERBERT SPENCER, First Principles
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She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.—SWIFT, Polite Conversation
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Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.—TENNYSON, Lady Clara Vere de Vere
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Goodness is the only investment that never fails.—THOREAU, Walden
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Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.—JOHN WESLEY, John Wesley's Rule
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The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.—WORDSWORTH, The Excursion
