Golden Rule Quotes

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”
― Socrates

“You can't teach calculus to a chimpanzee. So just share your banana.”
― John Rachel, Blinders Keepers

“Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”
― Mark Twain

“I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this: 'Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.' … The twenty-five percent is for error.”
― Linus Pauling

“Remember!--It is Christianity to do good always--even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbours as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace.”
― Charles Dickens

“Treat other people's home as you want them to respect yours because what goes around comes around.”
― Ana Monnar

“If you contemplate the Golden Rule, it turns out to be an injunction to live by grace rather than by what you think other people deserve.”
― Deepak Chopra, The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore

“If your actions were to boomerang back on you instantly, would you still act the same? Doing to others an act you’d rather not have done to you reveals a powerful internal conflict.”
― Alexandra Katehakis

“...The Presidential election has given me less anxiety than I myself could have imagined. The next administration will be a troublesome one, to whomsoever it falls, and our John has been too much worn to contend much longer with conflicting factions. I call him our John, because, when you were at the Cul de sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine.

...As to the decision of your author, though I wish to see the book {Flourens’s Experiments on the functions of the nervous system in vertebrated animals}, I look upon it as a mere game at push-pin. Incision-knives will never discover the distinction between matter and spirit, or whether there is any or not. That there is an active principle of power in the universe, is apparent; but in what substance that active principle resides, is past our investigation. The faculties of our understanding are not adequate to penetrate the universe. Let us do our duty, which is to do as we would be done by; and that, one would think, could not be difficult, if we honestly aim at it.

Your university is a noble employment in your old age, and your ardor for its success does you honor; but I do not approve of your sending to Europe for tutors and professors. I do believe there are sufficient scholars in America, to fill your professorships and tutorships with more active ingenuity and independent minds than you can bring from Europe. The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton’s universe and Herschel’s universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

I salute your fireside with best wishes and best affections for their health, wealth and prosperity.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 22 January, 1825}”
― John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams

“Do unto others as they wish, but with imagination.”
― Marcel Duchamp

“Why should I have to hide the fact that I don't believe there’s a supreme being? There’s no proof of it. There’s no harm in saying you’re an atheist. It doesn't mean you treat people any differently. I live by the Golden Rule to do unto others, as you'd want to be treated.

I just simply don't believe in religion, and I don’t believe necessarily that there’s a supreme being that watches over all of us. I follow the teachings of George Carlin. George said he worshipped the sun. He was a fellow atheist. I’m in good company … Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin. It’s not like I’m not with good company and intelligent people. There have been some good, intelligent atheists who have lived in the world.”
― Jesse Ventura

“We love the imperfect shapes in nature and in the works of art, look for an intentional error as a sign of the golden key and sincerity found in true mastery.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“Can you hold a red-hot iron rod in your hand merely because some one wants you to do so? Then, will it be right on your part to ask others to do the same thing just to satisfy your desires? If you cannot tolerate infliction of pain on your body or mind by others' words and actions, what right have you to do the same to others through your words and deeds?

Do unto others as you would like to be done by. Injury or violence done by you to any life in any form, animal or human, is as harmful as it would e if caused to your own self.”
― Lord Mahāvīra

“Speak with caution. Even if someone forgives harsh words you've spoken, they may be too hurt to ever forget them. Don't leave a legacy of pain and regret of things you never should have said.”
― Germany Kent

“Instead of seeing how much pain I can dish out towards those I disagree with, or who I believe have done me wrong, I seek to follow the golden rule and use my words and behavior to create more of what the world needs – love, compassion, and connection.”
― Aspen Baker

“Remember the Golden Rule? "Treat people as you would like to be treated." The best managers break the Golden Rule every day. They would say don't treat people as you would like to be treated. This presupposes that everyone breathes the same psychological oxygen as you. For example, if you are competitive, everyone must be similarly competitive. If you like to be praised in public, everyone else must, too. Everyone must share your hatred of micromanagement.”
― Marcus Buckingham

“Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”
― Johnny Hart

“Don’t do what should not be done, and don’t desire what should not be desired. Abide by this one precept, and everything else will follow.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“The Golden Rule is intolerable; if millions did to others whatever they wished others to do to them, few would be safe from molestation. The Golden Rule shows anything but moral genius, and the claim by which it is followed in the Sermon on the Mount -- 'this is the Law and the Prophets' -- makes little sense.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Without Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy

“Jonathan Swift made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbor as himself.”
― W.B. Yeats, Selected Poems and Four Plays

“The essence of the Torah is the command: Do not do unto others as you should not want them to do unto you—the rest is commentary. Go and study.”
― Erich Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods

“The long-run goal is, I think, the same for every human being, that politically he or she may be allowed to live free from fear, insecurity, terror, and oppression, free also from the possibility of exercising unequal or unjust domination over others.”
― Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine

“It is in the harsh light of the Golden Rule ("whatever you wish that others do to you, do also to them," Matt. 7:12) that we are most terribly exposed.”
― Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity

“In dim mirrors now I see;
Who God wants me to be.”
― Cali Willette, Fractures of Gold

“Jesus you are concealed within my heart;
I am splintered, yet I'll never fall apart.”
― Cali Willette, Fractures of Gold

“If we had abided by the Golden Rule, we wouldn't have all these wars around the world. It seems we have read the wrong part of the ancient scriptures, which emphasizes an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“To live an authentic life, we must break free from the prison of perception and let our true selves shine. For the only true judge of our worth lies not in the eyes of others, but in the mirror of our own soul.”
― Shawpelle Mellowness, BACK TO GOLD: Live an Authentic Life Free from the Prison of Perception

“I could be you, you could be me
Two raindrops in the same sea
You could be me, I could be you
Two angles of the same view

And we share the same blood”
― Coldplay, Coldplay - Everyday Life Songbook

“Thus, all four Gospels present us with a teacher who, just like about every other teacher in history, said the same things multiple times. Why think up an epigram like "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matt. 7:1 ESV; cf. Luke 6:37), a saying like the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31), or a story as captivating as Luke 15:11-32, and use it only once?”
― Peter J. Williams, The Surprising Genius of Jesus: What the Gospels Reveal about the Greatest Teacher