Goodness

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69).

He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars.
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer.
~ William Blake, from Jerusalem (1804).

He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children.
~ William Blake, from Jerusalem (1804).

I have been trying all my life to stretch out my arms so as to reach with one hand the poor, and at the same time to keep the other in touch with the rich. But my arms are not long enough.
~ William Booth

Bingo, that's a goodie!
~ Paul William "Bear" Bryant, I Ain't Never Been Nothing but a Winner: Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's 323 Greatest Quotes About Success, On and Off the Football Field (March 2000).

The prayers of all good people are good.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, My Antonia (1918). Book I. Chapter XI

What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), from The Works of William E. Channing, D.D. (1841). Trust in the Living God

Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
~ William Cobbett

Be good, and leave the rest to Heaven.
~ William Combe, Tour of Dr. Syntax, in Search of the Picturesque (1812). Canto VII

Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.
~ William Congreve, The Old Bachelor (1693).

The good receiv'd, the giver is forgot.
~ William Congreve, from Poems Upon Several Occasions (1752). Epistle to the Right Honourable Charles Lord Halifax, etc.

Doing good, disinterested good, is not our trade.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book I. The Sofa

That good diffused may more abundant grow.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Conversation

It's easy to see the faults in people I know; and it's harder to see the good. Especially when the good isn't there.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950).

A humanist, as I understand the term, says, "This world is good enough for me, if only I can be good enough for it."
~ William Empson, Milton's God (1961).

Give me good health and the strength to be of real service to the world, and I'll get all that's good for me, and will what's left to those who want it.
~ William Feather

Something that has always puzzled me all my life is why, when I am in special need of help, the good deed is usually done by somebody on whom I have no claim.
~ William Feather, The Business of Life (1949).

He's the one rotten apple who turns out to be the good egg.
~ William Feaver

If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a buzz-saw.
~ W.C. Fields

What's good for Ford Motor Co. is good for the Ford family. . . . This has been part of my life since the day I was born.
~ William Clay Ford, Jr., The Associated Press (30 October 2002). Biographical Notes on Bill Ford Jr.

We believe that we ought to join hands and work to make the good things better and the worst good, counting nothing good for self that is not good for all.
~ William Channing Gannett, Proposed at the Western Unitarian Conference (1887). Things Commonly Believed Among Us

I love my fellow creatures -- I do all the good I can --
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert

What good is a friend if you can't make an enemy of him?
~ William Hooker Gillette

If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such.
~ William Godwin, The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays (1797). Of the Communication of Knowledge

May the Lord bless you real good.
~ Billy Graham

Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking

Hell is paved with good samaritans.
~ William Holden (William Franklin Beedle, Jr.)

The lower stone can do no good without the hyer.
~ William Horman, (1519).

There's many a good thing lost by not asking for it.
~ (Col.) William C. Hunter, Brass Tacks (1910).

All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish. Can things whose end is always dust and disappointment be the real goods which our souls require?
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). The Sick Soul

The world is not yet with them, so they often seem in the midst of the world's affairs to be preposterous. Yet they are impregnators of the world, vivifiers and animators of potentialities of goodness which but for them would lie forever dormant.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). The Value of Saintliness

There is but one unconditional commandment, which is that we should seek incessantly, with fear and trembling, so to vote and to act as to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
~ William James, An address to the Yale Philosophical Club (first published in the International Journal of Ethics; April 1891). The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life

Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907).

We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). The Laws of Habit

No good act performed in the world ever dies. Science tells us that no atom of matter can ever be destroyed, that no force once started ever ends; it merely passes through a multiplicity of ever-changing phases. Every good deed done to others is a great force that starts an unending pulsation through time and eternity. We may not know it, we may never hear a word of gratitude or recognition, but it will all come back to us in some form as naturally, as perfectly, as inevitably, as echo answers to sound.
~ William George Jordan, The Power of Truth: Individual Problems and Possibilities (1902). The Courage to Face Ingratitude

If you desire to labor for the good of the world, it will be unwise for you to strive to include it all at once in your efforts. If you can help elevate or teach but one soul -- that is a good beginning, and more than is given to many.
~ William Q. Judge, The Path (August 1886). Musings On The True Theosophist's Path

Dey tal me ay ban a gude faller.
Ay guess dey ban right; but, yee whiz!
Ef yu ever ban a gude faller,
Yu know 'bout how costly it is.
~ William F. Kirk, The Norsk Nightingale (1905). A Good Fellow

I forgot who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked; it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously, for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919).

There is nothing more beautiful than goodness, and it has pleased me very often to show how much of it there is in persons who by common standards would be relentlessly condemned. I have shown it because I have seen it.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

But someone once described the contrast between a good life and a godly life as the difference between the top of the ocean and the bottom. On top, sometimes it's like glass -- serene and calm -- and other times it's raging and stormy. But hundreds of fathoms below, it is beautiful and consistent, always calm, always peaceful.
~ Bill McCartney, From Ashes To Glory (1990). Good Life -- Godly Life

I never saw a mob rush across town to do a good deed.
~ Wilson Mizner

No tale I tell
Of ill or well,
But this I say,
Night treadeth on day,
And for worst and best
Right good is rest.
~ William Morris, For the Bed at Kelmscott (1891).

All good things were at one time bad things; every original sin has developed into an original virtue.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Many people wait throughout their whole lives for the chance to be good in their own fashion.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The good generally displeases us when it is beyond our ken.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. First Sequel: Mixed Opinions and Maxims (March 1879).

A good End cannot sanctify evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.
~ William Penn, (1693).

Do Good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Temporal Happiness

He that does good for good's sake, seeks neither praise or reward, but he is sure of both in the end.
~ William Penn

I expect to pass through the world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or abilities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
~ William Penn

For what life is so highly deserving of reward as that which is spent in doing good without the hope or desire of reward?
~ W. (William) Winwood Reade , First published in the Thinkers Library (1933). The Outcast, Letter XIV

Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large, no great good is to be expected.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy, I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951). I: Current Perplexities

The good life . . . is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, What I Believe (1925).

You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.
~ William Saroyan, My Heart's in the Highlands (1939 play).

Nothing good ever ends.
~ William Saroyan, The Human Comedy (1943).

Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let be free and unashamed.
~ William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (1939 play).

You may toil with brain and sinew,
And though little wealth it win you,
If there's health and hope within you --
You've made good.
~ Robert William Service, Making Good

All goodness
Is poison to thy stomach.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act III, scene ii

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene i

If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.
~ William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus. Act V, scene iii

Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace.
~ William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus. Act III, scene i

One good deed, dying tongueless,
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale. Act I, scene ii

That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act V, scene i

The good I stand on is my truth and honesty.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act V, scene i

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act I, scene ii

I must do good as well as be good; and I must labor to have those around me enjoy the same spiritual blessings that I do.
~ William Simonds (Walter Aimwell)

As much as we believe that the Globe has been good for the city, we also know how good the city has been for the Globe.
~ William O. Taylor (on the 125th anniversary of The Boston Globe; 1997).

Every one knows what harm the bad may do, but who knows the mischief done by the good?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray

The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond (1852). Book I. Chapter X. I Go to Cambridge, and Do But Little Good There

It belongs to the man who is in quest of his supreme good to draw as near to divine things as his condition of life will allow.
~ W. (William) Bernard Ullathorne, from The Little Book of Humility and Patience (1900). On the Nature of Christian Virtue

A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.
~ Vincent Willem van Gogh, in The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, vol. 3 (1958). Letter of 1890

Critics grow mild, life's witty warfare cease,
And true good-nature breathe the balm of peace.
~ William Whitehead, On Ridicule (1743)

The spark divine dwells in thee: let it grow.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Resolve

Who is the good? Not he who walks each day
With moral men along the high, clean way;
But he who jostles gilded sin and shame,
Yet will not sell his honour or his name.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Pastels (1906). Strength

No good deed goes unpunished.
~ Billy Wilder

I always felt that I was as good as the next person, and I didn't care what they had.
~ Lenny Wilkens

If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.
~ Bud Wilkinson

I still think I'm not as good as anybody else.
~ Andy Williams

I swear to God, it's an incredible force for good if you can remember that nonviolence is the weapon of the strong.
~ Betty Williams, PeaceJam Foundation (4 July 1995). An Interview with Betty Williams

[I]t is as pleasant as unusual to see thoroughly good people getting their deserts.
~ Charles Walter Stansby Williams, James I (1934).

In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

[T]he temporary or seeming good can often be the deadly enemy of the permanent best.
~ Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age (1957).

That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

'Tis Nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, Vol. 2 (1800). The Old Cumberland Beggar

I tell you, 'tis as hard to be a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of women, as 'tis to be a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of money.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1675). Act I, scene i

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). The Fiddler of Dooney