Good Quotes

“I am not good. Nor am I evil. I am no hero. Nor am I villain. I am AIDAN.”
― Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff, Obsidio

“Governments will rise, and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, Among the Enemy

“And now,' said the unknown, 'farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven's substitute to recompense the good - now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Sometimes I wonder if he were raised a Red and I a Gold if he wouldn't have ended up a better man than I am now, and I a worse man than he ever could be.

For some reason I think I could have been capable of great evil.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Why should I give up revenge? On behalf of what? Moral principles? And what of the higher order of things, in which evil deeds are punished? For you, a philosopher and ethicist, an act of revenge is bad, disgraceful, unethical and illegal. But I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who has it and grants access? The Gods, in which you do not believe? The great demiurge-creator, which you decided to replace the gods with? Or maybe the law? [...] I know what evil is afraid of. Not your ethics, Vysogota, not your preaching or moral treaties on the life of dignity. Evil is afraid of pain, mutilation, suffering and at the end of the day, death! The dog howls when it is badly wounded! Writhing on the ground and growls, watching the blood flow from its veins and arteries, seeing the bone that sticks out from a stump, watching its guts escape its open belly, feeling the cold as death is about to take them. Then and only then will evil begin to beg, 'Have mercy! I regret my sins! I'll be good, I swear! Just save me, do not let me waste away!'. Yes, hermit. That is the way to fight evil! When evil wants to harm you, inflict pain - anticipate them, it's best if evil does not expect it. But if you fail to prevent evil, if you have been hurt by evil, then avenge him! It is best when they have already forgotten, when they feel safe. Then pay them in double. In triple. An eye for an eye? No! Both eyes for an eye! A tooth for a tooth? No! All their teeth for a tooth! Repay evil! Make it wail in pain, howling until their eyes pop from their sockets. And then, you can look under your feet and boldly declare that what is there cannot endanger anyone, cannot hurt anyone. How can someone be a danger, when they have no eyes? How can someone hurt when they have no hands? They can only wait until they bleed to death.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Wieża Jaskółki

“Briar: "They never tell you some things. They tell you mages have wonderful power and they learn all kinds of secrets. Nobody ever mentions that some secrets you don't ever want to learn."
Rosethorn: "All you can do is learn good to balance the bad. Learn and do all the good within your reach. Then, if you wake in a sweat, you have something to set against the dream.”
― Tamora Pierce, Street Magic

“Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"
They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”
― Sherwood Smith, Crown Duel

“Thing were falling apart. We just could not slow down. We were evolving into something greater, perhaps too much for our own good. And one thing always remained as I moved on. I saved a little bit of love just in case you would ever return home.”
― Robert M. Drake, Beautiful Chaos

“He tells me I look as if I could use a hugand i laugh at him and he ignores me and steps forward and puts his arms around me and hugs me. I warm at the simple pleasure of human contact and for the first time in a long time i actually feel good." (James Frey, pg.38)”
― James Frey, A Million Little Pieces

“In great hearts the cruelty of life gives birth to good.”
― Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

“A perfectly evil Devil makes even less sense than a perfect God.”
― Anne Rice

“He didn't have a single clue what was going on with these two strangers, but every instinct told him Master George equaled good, Mistress Jane equaled bald- he blinked-uh, bad. ”
― James Dashner, The Journal of Curious Letters

“God created every man to be free. The ability to choose whether to live free or enslaved, right or wrong, happy or in fear is something called freewill. Every man was born with freewill. Some people use it, and some people use any excuse not to. Nobody can turn you into a slave unless you allow them. Nobody can make you afraid of anything, unless you allow them. Nobody can tell you to do something wrong, unless you allow them. God never created you to be a slave, man did. God never created division or set up any borders between brothers, man did. God never told you hurt or kill another, man did. And in the end, when God asks you: "Who told you to kill one of my children?"

And you tell him, "My leader."

He will then ask you, "And are THEY your GOD?”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.”
― Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

“War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said.
"Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?"
"Absol—well, okay."
"Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?"
"All right, I'll grant you that, but—"
"Saving civilization from a horde of—"
"It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together," said Fred Colon sharply.
"Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?”
― Terry Pratchett, Thud!

“And one more thing: you still believe that man can be good. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have invented all this nonsense to convince yourself otherwise.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym

“Robert G. Ingersoll was a great man. a wonderful intellect, a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men of the earth -- and yet we have no right to bow down to his memory simply because he was great. Great orators, great soldiers, great lawyers, often use their gifts for a most unholy cause. We meet to pay a tribute of love and respect to Robert G. Ingersoll because he used his matchless power for the good of man.

{Darrow's eulogy for Ingersoll at his funeral}”
― Clarence Darrow

“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“Despite everything, I believe people are really good at heart.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“He hesitated, remembering something Finnikin had said to him on their journey. That somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.”
― Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock

“The best people are always the worst. They drive everyone mad by being so good at second-guessing everything bad.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose.”
― Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace

“An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes.”
― Ayn Rand

“How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'
'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear...It is a man's part to discern them, as much in th Golden Wood as in his own house.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“This is not going to be easy. I'm good at being bad, but I'm bad at being good. I don't know the first thing about good deeds.”
― Neal Shusterman, Everlost

“There is evil in all of us, and it is the mark of a man how he defies the evil within.”
― David Gemmell, Waylander

“In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”
― Ayn Rand

“See yourself as you really are.
Accept the good and the bad.
Only then can you truly share yourself with another.”
― Velyn Cooper

“Some boys walk by and you cry, seeing them. They feel good, they look good, they are good. Oh, they're not above peeing off a bridge, or stealing an occasional dime-store pencil sharpener; it's not that. It's just, you know, seeing them pass, that's how they'll be all their life; they'll get hit, hurt, cut, bruised, and always wonder why, why does it happen? how can it happen to them?”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

“The good and the beautiful is not forgotten; it lives in legend and in song.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, Classic Fairy Tales