Quotes About Goodness

Do you think Jesus came to deliver us from the punishment of our sins? He would not have moved a step for that. The terrible thing is to be bad, and all punishment is to help to deliver us from it, nor will it cease till we have given up being bad. God will have us good; and Jesus works out the will of his father.

What a folly is it now, he instantly resumed, leaving the general and attacking a particular, to think to make people good by promises and threats--promises of a heaven that would bore the dullest among them to death, and threats of a hell the very idea of which, if only half conceived, would be enough to paralyse every nerve of healthy action in the human system!

One of four gates stands open to us: to deny the existence of God, and say we can do without him; to acknowledge his existence, but say he is not good, and act as true men resisting a tyrant; to say, I would there were a God, and be miserable because there is none; or to say there must be a God, and he must be perfect in goodness or he could not be, and give ourselves up to him heart and soul and hands and history.

With him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end-namely, that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness. It is so plain that any one may see it, every one ought to see it, every one shall see it. It must be so. He is utterly true and good to us, nor shall anything withstand his will.

There must be hope while there is existence; for where there is existence there must be God; and God is forever good nor can be other than good.

He began to wonder whether even an all-mighty and all-good God would be able to contrive such a world as no somebody in it would ever complain of. What if he had plans too large for the vision of men to take in, and they were uncomfortable to their own blame, because, not seeing them, they would trust him for nothing?

Truly, if ignorance is the foundation of any man's goodness, it is not worth the wind that upsets it, but in its mere self, ignorance of evil is a negative good.

No man can lie FOR God, however he may try it, for God is lovelier than all the imaginations of all his creatures can think.

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone corrupt to the bones.' 'Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.

Listen, the more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?" "Yes, perfectly." "I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones." "Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.

La guerra es la guerra. El único ser humano bueno es el que ha muerto.»

Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that? I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.

La guerra es la guerra. El único ser humano bueno es el que ha muerto.

Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?' 'Yes, perfectly.' 'I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.' 'Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.' 'You like doing this? I don't mean simply me: I mean the thing in itself?' 'I adore it.

In times when evil comes because men misunderstand and hate one another, it is the mission of the artist to praise sweetness, confidence, and friendship, and so to remind men, hardened or discouraged, that pure morals, tender sentiments, and primitive justice still exist, or at least can exist, in this world.

A hundred times in life, she declares, the good that one does seems to serve no immediate purpose; yet it maintains in one way and another the tradition of well wishing and well doing, without which all would perish.

There's a vast underground network for goodness at work in this world—a web of people who've put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more expansive, generous people…

He was not perfect; he was, remember, a little boy. Could be wild, naughty, overwrought. He was a boy. However - it must be said - he was quite a good boy.

Kind little words, which are of the same blood as great and holy deeds," flowed from his lips constantly.

If such things as goodness and brotherhood and redemption exist, and may be attained, these must sometimes require blood, vengeance, the squirming terror of the former perpetrator, the vanquishing of the heartless oppressor.

that there's a vast underground network for goodness at work in the world—a web of people who've put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more expansive, generous people and makes their lives more interesting.

Perhaps, I thought, this is faith: to believe our God ever receptive to the smallest good intention.)

Evelyn says that they are all of them truly good and saintly! Indeed, he described Patience to me as an angel! Well, dearest, I wouldn't for a moment deny that that is – is most admirable, but I find saintly persons excessively uncomfortable, and I cannot live with an angel!