Good Man Quotes - Page 17

• Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them - it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort - but actions which aim at honor and advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life.

  Aristotle

  Good Life, Spring, Men

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.2113, Princeton University Press

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• Dying visions of angels and Christ and God and heaven are confined to credibly good men. Why do not bad men have such visions? They die of all sorts of diseases; they have nervous temperaments; they even have creeds and hopes about the future which they cling to with very great tenacity; why do not they rejoice in some such glorious illusions when they go out of the world?

  Enoch Fitch Burr

  Death, Angel, Men

  Enoch Fitch Burr (1871). “Ad Fidem; Or, Parish Evidences of the Bible”, p.305

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• Hanks is a good man, and he produced the "John Adams" series as well. He does good work. But I'm more worried about a Tom Hanks when we're at war against radical Islam than I am against a caricature like Sean Penn. He's a completely marginalized soul.

  Bill O'Reilly

  War, Men, Soul

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• The good man is he for whom, because he is virtuous, the things that are absolutely good are good; it is also plain that his use of these goods must be virtuous and in the absolute sense good.

  Aristotle

  Men, Use, Virtuous

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.380, Simon and Schuster

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• If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen - thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.

  Aristotle

  Men, Perfect, Citizens

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.275, Simon and Schuster

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• The refuge from pessimism is the good men and women at any time existing in the world, -they keep faith and happiness alive.

  Charles Eliot Norton

  Men, Alive, World

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• In the perfect state the good man is absolutely the same as the good citizen; whereas in other states the good citizen is only good relatively to his own form of government.

  Aristotle

  Men, Perfect, Citizens

  Aristotle, Stephen Everson (1996). “Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens”, p.102, Cambridge University Press

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• Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly. He is like a watch of which the most that can be said is that its cosmetic effect is good.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Science, Technology

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.26, Knopf

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• Nor need it cause surprise that things disagreeable to the good man should seem pleasant to some men; for mankind is liable to many corruptions and diseases, and the things in question are not really pleasant, but only pleasant to these particular persons, who are in a condition to think them so.

  Aristotle

  Men, Thinking, Needs

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.271, Wordsworth Editions

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• If you have had no tension in your life, never been screwed up by problems, your mortality well within your own grasp, and someone tells you that God so loved you that He gave His Son to die for you, nothing but good manners will keep you from being amused.

  Oswald Chambers

  Son, Problem, Manners

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• The laws were not made so much for the direction of good men, as to circumscribe the bad.

  Samuel Richardson

  Men, Law, Made

  Samuel Richardson (1754). “The History of Sir Charles Grandison: in a series of letters”, p.45

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• Good manners are not bred in moments, but in years.

  Julia McNair Wright

  Years, Moments, Manners

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• Indeed, we may go further and assert that anyone who does not delight in fine actions is not even a good man.

  Aristotle

  Men, Doe, Delight

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• There are three things that are the motives of choice and three that are the motives of avoidance; namely, the noble, the expedient, and the pleasant, and their opposites, the base, the harmful, and the painful. Now in respect of all these the good man is likely to go right and the bad to go wrong, but especially in respect of pleasure; for pleasure is common to man with the lower animals, and also it is a concomitant of all the objects of choice, since both the noble and the expedient appear to us pleasant.

  Aristotle

  Animal, Men, Opposites

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• And inasmuch as the great-souled man deserves most, he must be the best of men; for the better a man is the more he deserves, and he that is best deserves most. Therefore the truly great-souled man must be a good man. Indeed greatness in each of the virtues would seem to go with greatness of soul.

  Aristotle

  Greatness, Men, Soul

  Aristotle (2017). “Eleven Common Characteristics of Great Souls”, p.4, Philaletheians UK

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• Therefore the good man ought to be a lover of self, since he will then both benefit himself by acting nobly and aid his fellows; but the bad man ought not to be a lover of self, since he will follow his base passions, and so injure both himself and his neighbors. With the bad man therefore, what he does is not in accord with what he ought to do, but the good man does what he ought, since intelligence always chooses for itself that which is best, and the good man obeys his intelligence.

  Aristotle

  Passion, Men, Self

  Aristotle (1934). “The Nicomachean ethics”

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• A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Action, Villain

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.95, Psychology Press

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• Bad art was as good as good art. Grammar and spelling were no longer important. To be clean was no better than to be filthy. Good manners were no better than bad. Family life was derided as an outdated bourgeois concept. Criminals deserved as much sympathy as their victims. Many homes and classrooms became disorderly - if there was neither right nor wrong there could be no basis for punishment or reward. Violence and soft pornography became accepted in the media. Thus was sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind.

  Norman Tebbit

  Art, Home, Media

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• A good book is the very essence of a good man. His virtues survive in it, while the foibles and faults of his actual life are forgotten. All the goodly company of the excellent and great sit around my table, or look down on me from yonder shelves, waiting patiently to answer my questions and enrich me with their wisdom. A precious book is a foretaste of immortality.

  Theodore L. Cuyler

  Book, Reading, Men

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• This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.

  Eugene McCarthy

  Country, Party, Men

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• The virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.

  Aristotle

  Men, Perfect, Citizens

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.297, Simon and Schuster

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• Every good leader is part manager and every good manager is part leader.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Leader, Very Good, Managers

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• Good manners are very important, particularly in the morning.

  Louise Fitzhugh

  Morning, Important, Manners

  Louise Fitzhugh (2009). “Harriet the Spy”, p.26, Yearling

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• A good many men and women want to get possession of secrets just as spendthrifts want to get money-for circulation.

  George D. Prentice

  Men, Secret, Want

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• Forget love. Try good manners.

  Rebecca Wells

  Trying, Forget, Manners

  Rebecca Wells (2009). “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: Novel, A”, p.26, Harper Collins

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