Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Goodness
Whatever any one does or says, I must be good.
Aurelius Antoninus—Meditations. Ch. VII.
What good I see humbly I seek to do,
And live obedient to the law, in trust
That what will come, and must come, shall come well.
Edwin Arnold—The Light of Asia. Bk. VI. L. 273.
Because indeed there was never law, or sect, or opinion, did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.
Bacon—Essays. Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature.
For the cause that lacks assistance,
The wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that I can do.
Geo. Linnæus Banks—What I Live For.
The good he scorned
Stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,
Not to return; or if it did, in visits
Like those of angels, short and far between.
Blair—The Grave. Pt. II. L. 586.
One may not doubt that, somehow Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And sure, the reverent eye must see
A purpose in Liquidity.
Rupert Brooke—Heaven.
There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.
Robert Browning—Abt Vogler. IX.
No good Book, or good thing of any sort, shows its best face at first.
Carlyle—Essays. Novalis.
Can one desire too much of a good thing?
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. I. Bk. I. Ch. VI. As You Like It. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 123.
Ergo hoc proprium est animi bene constituti, et lætari bonis rebus, et dolere contrariis.
This is a proof of a well-trained mind, to rejoice in what is good and to grieve at the opposite.
Cicero—De Amicitia. XIII.
Homines ad deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando.
Men in no way approach so nearly to the gods as in doing good to men.
Cicero—Oratio Pro Quinto Ligario. XII.
Cui bono?
What’s the good of it? for whose advantage?
Cicero—Oratio Pro Sextio Roscio Amerino. XXX. Quoted from Lucius Cassius—Second Philippic. (“Qui bono fueret.”) See Life of Cicero. II. 292. Note.
That good diffused may more abundant grow.
Cowper—Conversation. L. 441.
Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.
Cowper—Task. Bk. I. The Sofa. L. 673.
Now, at a certain time, in pleasant mood,
He tried the luxury of doing good.
Crabbe—Tales of the Hall. Bk. III.
Who soweth good seed shall surely reap;
The year grows rich as it groweth old,
And life’s latest sands are its sands of gold!
Julia C. R. Dorr—To the “Bouquet Club.”
Look around the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
Dryden—Juvenal. Satire X.
If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.
Epictetus—Fragments. Long’s trans.
For all their luxury was doing good.
Samuel Garth—Cleremont. L. 149.
Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunkeln Drange,
Ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst.
A good man, through obscurest aspirations
Has still an instinct of the one true way.
Goethe—Faust. Prolog im Himmel.
And learn the luxury of doing good.
Goldsmith—The Traveller. L. 22.
Impell’d with steps unceasing to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view,
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies.
Goldsmith—The Traveller. L. 25.
If goodness leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.
Herbert—The Pulley. St. 4.
Vir bonus est quis?
Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat.
Who is a good man? He who keeps the decrees of the fathers, and both human and divine laws.
Horace—Epistles. I. 16. 40.
God whose gifts in gracious flood
Unto all who seek are sent,
Only asks you to be good
And is content.
Victor Hugo—God whose Gifts in Gracious Flood.
He was so good he would pour rose-water on a toad.
Douglas Jerrold—Jerrold’s Wit. A Charitable Man.
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
John. I. 46.
How near to good is what is fair!
Ben Jonson—Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly.
Rari quippe boni: numero vix sunt totidem quot
Thebarum portæ, vel divitis ostia Nili.
The good, alas! are few: they are scarcely as many as the gates of Thebes or the mouths of the Nile.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 26.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them all day long;
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.
Charles Kingsley—Farewell. To C. E. G.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever;
Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long;
And so make Life, and Death, and that For Ever,
One grand sweet song.
Charles Kingsley—Farewell. Version in ed. of 1889. Also in Life. Ed. by his wife. Vol. I. P. 487, with line: “And so make Life, Death, and that vast For Ever.”
Weiss
Dass alle Länder gute Menschen tragen.
Know this, that every country can produce good men.
Lessing—Nathan der Weise. II. .
Segnius homines bona quam mala sentiunt.
Men have less lively perception of good than of evil.
Livy—Annales. XXX. 21.
The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.
Lowell—Among my Books. Second Series. Garfield.
Si veris magna paratur
Fama bonis, et si successu nuda remoto
Inspicitur virtus, quicquid laudamus in ullo
Majorum, fortuna fuit.
If honest fame awaits the truly good; if setting aside the ultimate success of excellence alone is to be considered, then was his fortune as proud as any to be found in the records of our ancestry.
Lucan—Pharsalia. IX. 593.
The crest and crowning of all good,
Life’s final star, is Brotherhood.
Edwin Markham—Brotherhood.
None
But such as are good men can give good things,
And that which is not good, is not delicious
To a well-governed and wise appetite.
Milton—Comus. L. 702.
***his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 162.
Since good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. V. L. 71.
A glass is good, and a lass is good,
And a pipe to smoke in cold weather;
The world is good, and the people are good,
And we’re all good fellows together.
John O’Keefe—Sprigs of Laurel. Act II. Sc. 1.
I know and love the good, yet ah! the worst pursue.
Petrarch—To Laura in Life. Canzone XXI.
Itidemque ut sæpe jam in multis locis,
Plus insciens quis fecit quam prodens boni.
And so it happens oft in many instances; more good is done without our knowledge than by us intended.
Plautus—Captivi Prologue. XLIV.
Bono ingenio me esse ornatam, quam auro multo mavolo.
Aurum fortuna invenitur, natura ingenium donum.
Bonam ego, quam beatam me esse nimio dici mavolo.
A good disposition I far prefer to gold; for gold is the gift of fortune; goodness of disposition is the gift of nature. I prefer much rather to be called good than fortunate.
Plautus—Phœnulus. I. 2. 90.
Gute Menschen können sich leichter in schlimme hineindenken als diese injene.
Good men can more easily see through bad men than the latter can the former.
Jean Paul Richter—Hesperus. IV.
You’re good for Madge or good for Cis
Or good for Kate, maybe:
But what’s to me the good of this
While you’re not good for me?
Christina Rossetti—Jessie Cameron. St. 3.
Esse quam videri bonus malebat.
He preferred to be good, rather than to seem so.
Sallust—Catlina. LIV.
What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon also be beautiful.
Sappho—Fragment. 101.
Bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem.
It is not goodness to be better than the very worst.
Seneca—Epistolæ Ad Lucilium.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too much.
Hamlet. Act IV. Sc. 7. L. 115.
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 4.
Your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Absolv’d him with an axe.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 263.
I am in this earthly world; where to do harm,
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly.
Macbeth. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 75.
My meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.
Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 14.
For the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
Do all the good you can,
To all the people you can,
In all the ways you can,
As long as ever you can.
Tombstone Inscription in Shrewsbury, England. Favorite of Mr. Moody.
For who is there but you? who not only claim to be a good man and a gentleman, for many are this, and yet have not the power of making others good. Whereas you are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others.
Socrates to Protagoras. See Plato. Jowett’s trans.
How pleasant is Saturday night,
When I’ve tried all the week to be good,
Not spoken a word that is bad,
And obliged every one that I could.
Nancy Dennis Sproat—How Pleasant is Saturday Night.
One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy—if I may.
Stevenson—Christmas Sermon.
She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
Swift—Polite Conversation. Dialogue II.
O, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will
Defects of doubt and taints of blood.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. LIV. 1.
’Tis only noble to be good.
Tennyson—Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Same in Juvenal—Satires. VIII. 24.
From seeming evil still educing good.
Thomson—Hymn. L. 114.
Man should be ever better than he seems.
Sir Aubrey de Vere—A Song of Faith.
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is
Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is called Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
Walt Whitman—Roaming in Thought. (After reading Hegel.)
Bene facere et male audire regium est.
To do good and be evil spoken of, is kingly.
On the Town Hall of Zittau, Saxony. Noted in Carlyle—Frederick the Great. XV. 13.