Stephen Sondheim Quotes

Popular and good and bad is not the same thing.

No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what's evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We're less sure about what is good. There's sort of good, good enough, could be better - but absolute good is a little harder to define.

The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

We must not indulge in unfavorable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain.

But the wicked passions of men's hearts alone seem strong enough to leave pictures that persist; the good are ever too luke-warm.

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.

Terms like 'good' and 'bad' are extremely simplistic in what is a far more complex situation.

The older I get the more I realize there's no real good guys or real bad guys, and I'm curious about how the good guys got good and how the bad guys got bad.

A man is only as good as what he loves.

There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

The bad guys don't always get punished and the good guys are not necessarily pure.

Good and bad men are less than they seem.

What is the purpose of our might if we do not use it for good.

Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is that which we perceive as a value.

It is by doing good that we become good.

Of God and Evil, there is nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and Evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves.

To do good, and be evil spoken of, is kingly.

Beneficience removes evils, introduces the practice of virtue, and adds to general welfare and civilization.

I've never met an evil person ever.

All my books are an inquiry into the nature of evil. Why do good people do bad things? Are any human beings completely evil? Do we all have good within us? That's what I'm interested in.

A man who has made no enemies is probably not a very good man.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.