Good Quotes

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but its the way you live your life that matters.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”
― Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.”
― Lemony Snicket

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“He felt that there is a loose balance of good and evil, and that the art of living consists in getting the greatest good out of the greatest evil.”
― Machado de Assis, Iaiá Garcia

“Many atrocities, have been done in the name of the greater good.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.”
― Alice Walker

“Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?” asked Scrimgeour.
“No, I’m not,” retorted Hermione. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“The worst memories stick with us, while the nice ones always seem to slip through our fingers.”
― Rachel Vincent, My Soul to Save

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“I know [Umbridge] by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater—'
'She's foul enough to be one…'
'Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters', said Sirius with a wry smile. 'I know she’s a nasty piece of work though'.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
― Simone Weil

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi: An Autobiography

“The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.”
― Erica Jong

“I used to think that finding the right one was about the man having a list of certain qualities. If he has them, we'd be compatible and happy. Sort of a checkmark system that was a complete failure. But I found out that a healthy relationship isn't so much about sense of humor or intelligence or attractive. It's about avoiding partners with harmful traits and personality types. And then it's about being with a good person. A good person on his own, and a good person with you. Where the space between you feels uncomplicated and happy. A good relationship is where things just work. They work because, whatever the list of qualities, whatever the reason, you happen to be really, really good together.”
― Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming

“Everybody has a little bit of the sun and moon in them. Everybody has a little bit of man, woman, and animal in them. Darks and lights in them. Everyone is part of a connected cosmic system. Part earth and sea, wind and fire, with some salt and dust swimming in them. We have a universe within ourselves that mimics the universe outside. None of us are just black or white, or never wrong and always right. No one. No one exists without polarities. Everybody has good and bad forces working with them, against them, and within them.


PART SUN AND MOON by Suzy Kassem”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
― Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics

“To light a candle is to cast a shadow...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“Who are you then?"
"I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“You need to know it's your actions that will make you a good person, not desire.”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“..the world seems full of good men--even if there are monsters in it.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“It was the moment I realized what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once.”
― Nina LaCour, Hold Still