Good Samaritan Quotes

The story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 1o) can he interpreted mystically in such a way that the question of the knowledge of God becomes its focus. The priest and the Levite, who walk past the man who fell among robbers and was seriously hurt, are pious God-fearing persons. They "know" God and the law of God. They have God the same way that the one who knows has that which is known. They know what God wants them to be and do. They also know where God is to he found, in the scriptures and the cult of the temple. For them, God is mediated through the existing institutions. They have their God - one who is not to he found on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.

What is wrong with this knowledge of God? The problem is not the knowledge of the Torah or the knowledge of the temple. (It is absurd to read an anti-Judaistic meaning into a story of the Jew Jesus, since it could just as well have come from Hillel or another Jewish teacher.) What is false is a knowledge of God that does not allow for any unknowing or any negative theology. Because both actors know that God is "this," they do not see "that." Hence the Good Samaritan is the anti-fundamentalist story par excellence.

"And so I ask God to rid me of God," Meister Eckhart says. The God who is known and familiar is too small for him. ~ Dorothee Solle

Like the Good Samaritan, may we not be ashamed of touching the wounds of those who suffer, but try to heal them with concrete acts of love. ~ Pope Francis

Really, seeing the amount we give in charity, the wonder is there are any poor left. It is a comfort that there are. What should we do without them? Our fur-clad little girls! our jolly, red-faced squires! we should never know how good they were, but for the poor? Without the poor how could we be virtuous? We should have to go about giving to each other. And friends expect such expensive presents, while a shilling here and there among the poor brings to us all the sensations of a good Samaritan. Providence has been very thoughtful in providing us with poor. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

The humanitarian is a treasure hunter seeking gems of remedy and appreciation. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I admire the good samaritan, but I don't want to be one.I don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed.I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
"A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We know from the now-iconic 1970s Good Samaritan study that the single greatest predictor of uncaring, unkind, and uncompassionate behavior, even among people who have devoted their lives to the welfare of others, is a perceived lack of time - a feeling of being rushed. The sense of urgency seems to consume all of our other concerns - it is the razor's blade that severs our connection to anything outside ourselves, anything beyond the task at hand, and turns our laser-sharp focus of concern onto the the immediacy of the self alone. ~ Maria Popova

I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to. ~ Wilfred Grenfell

A Good Samaritan is not simply one whose heart is touched in an immediate act of care and charity, but one who provides a system of sustained care. ~ James A. Forbes

The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity and the desire to do good. The latter is put high above the former, and yet it is the former that moves one of the most useful men the human race has yet produced: the scientific investigator. What actually urges him on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes. ~ H.L. Mencken

Justice goes across racial and economic barriers - like the good Samaritan. ~ John M. Perkins

I'm not a good Samaritan, I'm a businessman ... The goal is to read and react. If we sign an artist that has potential for a shelf life way out in the distance, then we'll stay. But if not, then we won't. ~ L.A. Reid

I'm just trying to do my part to save the world. ~ J. Cornell Michel

He knows of our anguish, and He is there for us. Like the Good Samaritan in His parable, when He finds us wounded at the wayside, He binds up our wounds and cares for us (see Luke 10:34). Brothers and sisters, the healing power of His Atonement is for you, for us, for all. ~ Sheri L. Dew

It seems it doesn't pay to be good anymore, when people are short-changing you for evil. ~ Anthony Liccione

[In the story of the Good Samaritan,] everybody knows the robber is bad--but doesn't Jesus also imply an indictment on the priest and Levite? . . . The priest and Levite are over here. They are 'righteous' in a superficial way. They don't rob anybody. They're not like that lousy criminal who is over here, on the bad end of the line. Do you see it? That's the line we modern Christians try to live on the right end of it . . . The Samaritan traveler lives on a higher level, altogether. The issue isn't who is wrong or righteous; that's obvious. The issue is who is truly good. ~ Brian D. McLaren

As a child, I once suffered a bad fall that resulted in scratched palms and scraped knees. I remember how badly it stung, the cold air hitting my bleeding wounds; I felt that I couldn't stand up for the pain. Through a veil of tears, I recall a kind hand reaching for me and helping me to my feet. My knees and palms were washed clean, and I remember thinking that for the rest of my life, I wanted to help people stand back up. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well. ~ Margaret Thatcher

The good Samaritan, he's getting dressed, he's getting ready for the show. He's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row. ~ Bob Dylan

Richard wrote a diary entry in his head.

Dear Diary, he began. On Friday I had a job, a fiancée, a home, and a life that made sense. (Well, as much as any life makes sense). Then I found an injured girl bleeding on the pavement, and I tried to be a Good Samaritan. Now I've got no fiancée, no home, no job, and I'm walking around a couple of hundred feet under the streets of London with the projected life expectancy of a suicidal fruitfly. ~ Neil Gaiman

Evangelism and the local church are inseparable. It's like the Good Samaritan seeking an inn for the one he rescued. ~ Reinhard Bonnke

Are we called to be like Noah? Yes. Are we called to be like the Good Samaritan? Yes. But not simply because they are positive examples to inspire us to righteousness. These stories point us to Christ. ~ Jen Wilkin

Each day millions of children arrive in American classrooms in search of more than reading and math skills. They are looking for a light in the darkness of their lives, a Good Samaritan who will stop and bandage a bruised heart or ego. ~ Jim Trelease

In A.J.'s experience, she wasn't really the kind of woman men would break down a door to get to. Well, maybe if a house was on fire and they were a Good Samaritan with ax and an air mask. ~ J.R. Ward

In the famous Darley and Batson Good Samaritan study in the early 1970s, a large number of seminary students were subjected to a time constraint and told to walk past a person who was writhing in pain and needed help. The victim was actually a paid actor who had been strategically positioned to participate in the experiment. They found that students' willingness to stop and help the victim strongly correlated to the perceived urgency of the time constraint - low hurry, 63 percent stopped to help; medium hurry, 45 percent stopped; and in the high-hurry scenario only 10 percent offered any form of assistance at all. Only an average of 40 percent of seminary students stopped to help. ~ Don Johnson

A lone wolf sees the wisdom in guarding the sheep and hunting their predators. ~ T.F. Hodge

At times we feel outnumbered in our attempts to improve the world - to brighten and beautify, to preserve and heal and do what's best for humanity. Selfless efforts can start to feel beleaguering, discouraging, even pointless with so little support. It is at these times I remind myself that I would rather be the last Good Samaritan standing than to join the ranks of selfish multitudes creating misery. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Many people in our community protect themselves from inconvenience as though inconvenience is deadly. We have decided that we are not inconvenienced by inconvenience. The needs of children come up unexpectedly. We are sure that the Good Samaritan had other plans that fateful day. Our plans are not sacred (p. 126). ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Don't dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast. Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. Set yourself a "stint," [London wrote 1,000 words nearly every day of his adult life] and see that you do that "stint" each day; you will have more words to your credit at the end of the year.

Study the tricks of the writers who have arrived. They have mastered the tools with which you are cutting your fingers. They are doing things, and their work bears the internal evidence of how it is done. Don't wait for some good Samaritan to tell you, but dig it out for yourself.

See that your pores are open and your digestion is good. That is, I am confident, the most important rule of all.

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.

And work. Spell it in capital letters. WORK. WORK all the time. Find out about this earth, this universe; this force and matter, and the spirit that glimmers up through force and matter from the maggot to Godhead. And by all this I mean WORK for a philosophy of life. It does not hurt how wrong your philosophy of life may ~ Jack London

Being missionaries means loving God with all one's heart, even to the point, if necessary, of dying for him ... Being missionaries means stooping down to the needs of all, like the Good Samaritan, especially those of the poorest and most destitute people. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

One man, an investment banker from Cantor Fitzgerald, took her to see the viewing deck like a good Samaritan since he felt sorry for her, and… and it was like flying, she could see the entire city, she could see the top of the clouds and the ocean, the pink and purple of the late sunset, and he told her, "it's the closest we can ever get to heaven! These buildings connect everyone together like a big community!"

"If this is the closest place to heaven, are you an angel investor?" she'd asked curiously. ~ Rebecca McNutt

Jesus disclosed that God is compassionate. Jesus spoke of God that way: "Be compassionate, as God is compassionate." Compassion is the primary quality of the central figures in two of his most famous parables: the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. And Jesus himself, as a manifestation of the sacred, is often spoken of as embodying compassion. ~ Marcus Borg

We have decided that we are not inconvenienced by inconvenience. The needs of children come up unexpectedly. We are sure that the Good Samaritan had other plans that fateful day. ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Dr. Martin Luther King put it like this: "We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside . . . but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved."23 ~ Shane Claiborne

It is at times such as this that we show our true spirit of giving and of brotherhood - of revealing the good Samaritan in all of us. ~ Jo Bonner

In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive. She ~ Georgette Heyer

Christ said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" and when asked "who is thy neighbour? went on to the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you wish to understand this parable as it was understood by his hearers, you should substitute "Germans and Japanese" for Samaritan. I fear my modern day Christians would resent such a substitution, because it would compel them to realize how far they have departed from the teachings of the founder of their religion. ~ Bertrand Russell

To be truly good means more than not robbing people . . . To be truly good means more than being righteously religious . . . To be truly good means being a good neighbor. . . . And to be a good neighbor means recognizing that there are ultimately no strangers. . . . Everybody is my neighbor! . . . Everybody is my brother! . . . There are no isolated monads wounded on the other side of the street! . . . We're all connected. ~ Brian D. McLaren

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But ... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10: 25-37), Jesus taught us that every stranger in need is our neighbor. Refugees as well as immigrants command the Church's care. ~ Francis George

Christian love is loving without counting the cost. This is the lesson of the Good Samaritan; this is the lesson of Jesus. ~ Pope Francis

Our great history has been that people came to Michigan because you didn't have to have a college degree to get a good-paying job. Consequently, we have got a larger number of our population that right now are facing outsourcing, et cetera, without higher or advanced degrees. ~ Jennifer Granholm

Forget what Queen Manevola wants" said a voice above her sounding deep and grotesque. "I won't be wasting this one when her blood smells so good!"

"Jacobse! Wait!"

Suddenly, loud and obliterating gunshots encircled the room and shattered the windows. The vampires hissed.

"Vampires. Your rebellion against the Time Queen, her highness Justina Reina, will not go unpunished."

A cacophony of firing followed. ~ Bellatuscana

He was old-fashioned looking, Grace decided. Not just the suit, which made him look as though he should be taking the air in one of those fifties movies on the French Riviera, but as if he was the second male lead in one of those same films. Not matinee-idol handsome enough to get the girl, but good enough to be the best friend of the one who got the girl. Or the arch nemesis of the one who got the girl who had his comeuppance ten minutes before the credits began to roll. ~ Sarra Manning

The Gospel calls individual Christians to live lives of honesty, integrity and concern for the common good.. to create circles of integrity.., networks of solidarity which can expand to embrace and transform society by their prophetic witness. ~ Pope Francis

Africa's risks are mainly perceived and not real. Unfortunately for us in Africa we are not really very good at telling our own story. But things are changing and people are beginning to understand that things are going very, very well. ~ Aliko Dangote

Our evangelical culture tends to take the awesome reality of a transcendent god who is worthy to be feared and downsize Him so He could fit into our "buddy system." The way we talk about Him, the way we pray, and, more strikingly, the way we live shows that we have somehow lost our sense of being appropriately awestruck in the presence of a holy and all-powerful God. It's been a long time since we've heard a good sermon on the "fear of God." If God were to show up visibly, many of us think we'd run up to Him and high-five Him for the good things He has done. ~ Joseph Stowell

My health is good and it's up to me to keep it that way. ~ Charles Kennedy

So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge. ~ Sharon Shinn

Though if love was an animal, Garret knew, it would probably be the Loch Ness Monster. If it didn't exist, that didn't matter. People made models of it, put it in the water, and took photos. The hoax of it was good enough. The idea of it. Though some people feared it, wished it would just go away, had their lives insured against being eaten alive by it. ~ Tao Lin

My friend Chip Ward speaks of "the tyranny of the quantifiable," of the way what can be measured almost always takes precedence over what cannot: private profit over public good; speed and efficiency over enjoyment and quality; the utilitarian over the mysteries and meanings that are of greater use to our survival and to more than our survival, to lives that have some purpose and value that survive beyond us to make a civilization worth having. ~ Rebecca Solnit

I would rather do really good French films than 'American Pie.' ~ Guillaume Canet

Whenever people open their hearts to God in some way, the Lord wants to do something good. Even if it just got scheduled randomly for that day, I'm sure [Pope Francis] sees significance in that. ~ Ralph Martin

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers. ~ Agnes Repplier

We can't deny that films have a bigger reach. After the popularity of the 'Slumdog Millionaire,' a lot of people started reading Vikas Swarup's 'Q & A'. From a business sense, films are a good tool to increase the number of readers. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

We don't think of ourselves as 'unforgiving' or 'bitter'- those words imply that we are somehow personally responsible. We prefer to talk about how deeply we have been 'hurt', implying that we are merely helpless victims. Are those who have been deeply wounded destined to live damaged lives? Or is there real healing for deep hurt? I say there is ... We've also deceived ourselves into believing that we can love and serve God and be 'good Christians,' while failing to forgive. When are we going to get honest? ~ Byron Paulus

We therefore have a good chance of overcoming the problem of resource scarcity. The real nemesis of the modern economy is ecological collapse. Both scientific progress and economic growth take place within a brittle biosphere, and as they gather steam, so the shock waves destabilise the ecology. In ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after? ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Whenever your focus is on doing what you want and making yourself feel good, you can be confident that the Spirit of God is not the one leading the way. ~ Leslie Ludy

It takes physical courage to indulge in wickedness. The "good" are too cowardly to do it. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Always think about how a piece of code should be used: good interfaces are the essence of good code. You can hide all kinds of clever and dirty code behind a good interface if you really need such code. ~ Bjarne Stroustrup

Ideas are not intellectuals' toys: ideas have consequences, for good and for ill, in what even intellectuals sometimes call "the real world". ~ George Weigel

Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable;even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all? ~ Henry David Thoreau

A new thing is good, though it be a sore place. ~ Paula McLain

You say good-bye, and you think you'll be free. But I'll be awaiting you, in your final destiny. ~ Haidji

That's another thing about my father. He made me very conscious of the fact I wasn't very good and I had to prove to him that I was good. And that hung with me, and I always wanted to play golf with him and show him. He said Never, Never tell anyone how good you are. Show them! ~ Arnold Palmer

Do not get up immediately at the end of the archana. The beloved deity should be brought from the seat in front of us back into our hearts and re-installed there. Seeing the form of the deity seated in the heart, meditate for a little longer. If it is possible, it is good to sing 2 or 3 kirtans. After taking an injection, a patient is asked to rest for a few minutes to let the medicine spread throughout the body. Similarly, to obtain the full benefit of the mantras, we should keep the mind calm for a while after worship. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

Someone said, and rightfully, that "property is theft'." There's no way a man can stand and tell me that he owns an apple tree. I just don't believe you. And so this pursuit of position and money and power, they are all wrapped up into one package that I think is crippling, debilitating and limiting. And unfortunately, people get sucked into it and then they've got you on the treadmill. You know: 'You've got to have a good job' and "You've got to have a good education' - which is another word for indoctrination. We're never going to rise above these limitations we've placed on ourselves. ~ George Carlin

You're looking for a book that reminds you why you read in the first place. One written well and that will feel like it was written just for you - one that will make you think about things in a new way, or feel things you didn't expect a book to make you feel, or see things in a new light. A book you won't want to put down, whose characters you don't want to tell good-bye. A book you will close feeling satisfied and grateful, thinking, Now, that was a good one. ~ Anne Bogel

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great sadness that I announce that I will resign as Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am sad because I love this job. I'm totally dedicated to the work that we are doing in Australia's name around the world, and I believe that we have achieved many good results for Australia, and I'm proud of them. ~ Kevin Rudd

Verily, I constantly renew my Islam until this very day, as up to now, I do not consider myself to have ever been a good Muslim. ~ Ibn Taymiyyah

At least you're learning a thing or two about wine. Good to hear you're making such an effort to improve yourself."
"Does the U.S. attorney know how much you like spending your Saturday nights eavesdropping on private conversations?" Nick asked.
"The U.S. attorney knows exactly how I like spending my Saturday nights. ~ Julie James

Make positive effort for the good. ~ Dainin Katagiri

Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. You could go from love to hate. But you cannot, at the same time - toward the same object, the same person - want to harm and want to do good. ~ Matthieu Ricard

"Choices with Clout" "If what we are thinking about doing is likely to produce good results, we can be reasonably sure we will be choosing the right thing to do. You can make a living from 9 to 5, but you make a success during the rest ... " ~ Wilbur Lucius Cross

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! ~ Charles Dickens

The good Lord gave me eight grandchildren, and I am convinced that through schools like Desert Christian that we are going to overwhelm the adversaries, not just with bombs and bullets, but with the demonstration of Christian principles. ~ Oliver North

The ownership of land is not natural. The American savage, ranging through forests who game and timber are the common benefits of all his kind, fails to comprehend it. The nomad traversing the desert does not ask to whom belong the shifting sands that extend around him as far as the horizon. The Caledonian shepherd leads his flock to graze wherever a patch of nutritious greenness shows amidst the heather. All of these recognise authority. They are not anarchists. They have chieftains and overlords to whom they are as romantically devoted as any European subject might be to a monarch. Nor do they hold as the first Christians did, that all land should be held in common. Rather, they do not consider it as a thing that can be parceled out.

"We are not so innocent. When humanity first understood that a man's strength could create good to be marketed, that a woman's beauty was itself a commodity for trade, then slavery was born. So since Adam learnt to force the earth to feed him, fertile ground has become too profitable to be left in peace.

"This vital stuff that lives beneath our feet is a treasury of all times. The past: it is packed with metals and sparkling stones, riches made by the work of aeons. The future: it contains seeds and eggs: tight-packed promises which will unfurl into wonders more fantastical than ever jeweller dreamed of -- the scuttling centipede, the many-branched tree whose roots, fumbling down into darkness, are as large and cunningly ~ Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Good people died. Bad people lived. And the rest of us had to continue surviving. ~ Pepper Winters

If you think it is more important to be moral than loving, you probably don't understand what either word really means. ~ Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Every book has at least one good thing…Love stories and bad news and evil masterminds, plots as thick as sludge, places and people she wishes she could know in real life, and words whose loveliness and music make her want to cry when she says them aloud. ~ Elizabeth Wetmore

You can't take good health for granted. ~ Jack Osbourne

Organizations like the ACLU fought and won the good fight back in the 1960's, but it's clear that nowadays they've run out of useful things to do since they now spend most of their time defending the scum of the Earth from getting what they rightly deserve. ~ Craig Bruce