What does it mean to be good? These quotes explore virtue, decency, kindness, and the daily choices that add up to a life well lived. Not preachy — just thoughtful observations from people trying to do right in a complicated world.
“If the critics are right that I've made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them.”
“Normal people have an incredible lack of empathy. They have good emotional empathy, but they don't have much empathy for the autistic kid who is screaming at the baseball game because he can't stand the sensory overload. Or the autistic kid having a meltdown in the school cafeteria because there's too much stimulation.”
“I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”
“There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.”
“It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.”
“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.”
“To me, to be a conservative means to conserve the good parts of America and to conserve our Constitution.”
“What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
“It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.”
“I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.”
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
“Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides.”
“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation that is what I call good company.”
“You know when something feels so good but you're afraid to feel good about it? So you kinda hold back? Everyone says, Congratulations, you must be so happy. And you say something stupid like, I'm just doing what little I can with what little I have.”
“A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.”
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”