goodness

I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid.

It is the law of our humanity that man must know good through evil. No great principle ever triumphed but through much evil. No man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mistakes.

There are six things that "keep us going." •First, the instinct to live, which we apparently have no part in making or deciding about. •Second, group consciousness and the desire that we have to win the approbation of our fellows within the group. •Third, the various interests that we may find in life, such as religion or art or some such other branch of esthetics. •Fourth, in our climate the habit of work. •Fifth, the sheer joy of physical life that we find in hours of well-earned recreation after hard work -games, fishing, tramping the hills, a good book before an open fire. •Sixth, and most important, the general feeling that we have that there is some abstract goodness or rightness in the world with which we may cooperate in making the world a fine place for a splendid race of men, women and children to live in.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing

Many of us have a tendency to forget the Gracious Hand which has preserved our nation, enriched it, strengthened it. Many of us imagine in the foolishness of pride, that our manifold blessings are due not to God's goodness, but to our own wisdom and virtue. Too many of us have been so drunk with self-sufficiency as no longer to feel the need of prayer.

For mankind to hate truth as it may bring their evil deeds to light and punishment, is very easy and common, but to hate truth as truth, or God as God, which is the same as to hate goodness for its own sake, unconnected with any other consequences, is impossible even to a (premised) diabolical nature itself .

Serve the dinner backward, eo anything - but, for goodness sake, do something weird.

Often we exaggerate the goodness of others more for our own virtue in giving praise than for the virtues that we praise: thus we invite commendation by seeming to dispense it.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness unless he has strength of character to be wicked. All other goodness is generally nothing but indolence or impotence of will.