Quotes about Goodness

Goodness is to do good to the deserving and love the good and hate the wicked, and not to be eager to inflict punishment or take vengeance, but to be gracious and kindly and forgiving.

There is a God and He is good, and his love, while free, has a self imposed cost: We must be good to one another.

God is great and so he planted seeds of greatness in you. God is good so there is goodness in you. God is love so there is love within you.

All our good is more apparently from God, because we are first naked and wholly without any good, and afterwards enrich with all good.

We can't be saved without being good, but 'tis not because our goodness is sufficient, or can do anything of itself. But 'tis because all whose hearts come to Christ will be good, and if men ben't good, their hearts never will come to Christ.

All our good is apparently from God, because we are first naked and holy without any good, and afterwards enriched with all good.

now I saw it was so far from any goodness in me to own myself spiritually dead and destitute of all goodness that, on the contrary, my mouth would be forever stopped by it; and it looked as dreadful to me to see myself and the relation I stood in to God—I a sinner and criminal, and He a great Judge and Sovereign—as it would be to a poor trembling creature to venture off some high precipice.

Our exceptionalness is not for us but for others. That is the paradox at the heart of who we are. So what makes us different has nothing to do with jingoism and nationalistic chest beating. If we have ever been great, it is only because we have been good. If we have ever been great, it is only because we have longed to help make others great too. That earnest humility and generosity must be attended to.

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.

He's already done that for us. We need only accept his free gift. And if we see the magnitude of that gift, we are moved to do good things. But it is as gratitude for what God has already done in saving us, not as a way of earning our own salvation. Once we receive God's free gift of love in Jesus, we are properly moved to want to love him back and to love our fellow man.

Years later it occurred to me that I was doing the same thing when I was helping my daughter memorize "Paul Revere's Ride." I was teaching her to love sacrifice and goodness and truth and beauty, and I was teaching her the history of America and therefore teaching her to love America.

It is the duty and high privilege of every human being to endeavor to improve himself. Effort at self-improvement is the definition sometimes given for religion. It may relate to our actions or to our convictions. In our actions we should aim at goodness; in our convictions, at truth.