A superior man in dealing with the world is not for anything or against anything. He follows righteousness as the standard.
A good woman is known by what she does; a good man by what he doesn't.
I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.
Successful people do what is right no matter how they feel, and by doing right, they feel good.
This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.
Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing, of system-building, and hireling service, into the region of beneficent activities. It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.
For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory Of benefits, noble is he no more.
Doing the right thing daily, compounds over time.
It appears evident, therefore, that those actions only can truly be called virtuous, and deserving of moral approbation, which the agent believed to be right, and to which he was influenced, more or less, by that belief.
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.
Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?
If a man does what is good, let him do it again; let him delight in it; happiness is the outcome of good.
Every act has both good and evil results. The best we can do is lean to the light.
What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.
He is noble who both feels and acts nobly.
The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.
Every man should view himself as equally balanced: half good and half evil. Likewise, he should see the entire world as half good and half evil.... With a single good deed he will tip the scales for himself, and for the entire world, to the side of good.
The esteem of wise and good men is the greatest of all temporal encouragements to virtue; and it is a mark of an abandoned spirit to have no regard to it.
A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.
The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.
Wisdom is always connected to beauty. When you see someone acting by their principles, their wisdom makes them beautiful.
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
It is not your outward appearance that you should beautify, but your soul, adorning it with good works.
There ain't anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity. Can you figure out a single thing you really please-God like to do you can do and keep your dignity? The human frame just ain't built that way.
The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the fountainhead from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth.
