Good Wise Quotes

A quick enlightenment tends to do more harm than good. Wise may easily become unwise. ~ Iva Kenaz

Let it not, therefore, be said that the Sovereign is not subject to the laws of his State; since the contrary is a true proposition of the right of nations, which flattery has sometimes attacked but good princes have always defended as the tutelary divinity of their dominions. How much more legitimate is it to say with the wise Plato, that the perfect felicity of a kingdom consists in the obedience of subjects to their prince, and of the prince to the laws, and in the laws being just and constantly directed to the public good! ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

Don't follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise. ~ Joan Rivers

Yes, I'm nervous. You'll find in time most people are. They simply learn better how to disguise it, and sometimes, if they're wise, how to use their anxiety to serve the public good. ~ Gregory Maguire

I hold that we have a very imperfect knowledge of the works of nature till we view them as works of God, - not only as works of mechanism, but works of intelligence, not only as under laws, but under a Lawgiver, wise and good. ~ James McCosh

As good government is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made? In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good. ~ John Adams

We never can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not. ~ Ellen Swallow Richards

Religious ideas about good and evil tend to focus on how to achieve well-being in the next life, and this makes them terrible guides to securing it in this one. Of course, there are a few gems to be found in every religious tradition, but insofar as these precepts are wise and useful they are not, in principle, religious. ~ Sam Harris

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Whoever does evil, have not seen God. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There is no one as good as God. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Second, as Luther stated, because God's love isn't caused by its object, it can love those who are not lovable, "sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong". Luther concluded, "rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good". ~ Miroslav Volf

There are certain things that I do - I don't eat chicken or pork. I stay away from red meat a lot; I eat fish most of the time. I think it makes me feel cleaner, not just body wise. I feel good. ~ Larry Fitzgerald

A poet's soul must contain the perfect shape of all things good, wise and just. His body must be spotless and without blemish, his life pure, his thoughts high, his studies intense. ~ Augustine Birrell

Years ago, a group of good, wise, brave, God-fearing men stood up to claim and defend the human right for independence. Those men are now dead. Their work is not. If good, wise, brave, God-fearing men fail to stand up in their stead, that independence will cease to exist. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

In quiet moments when you think about it, you recognize what is critically important in life and what isn't. Be wise and don't let good things crowd out those that are essential. ~ Richard G. Scott

That is a good question for you to ask, not a wise question for me to answer. ~ Anthony Eden

People were endlessly good, wise, and gentle in the midst of all the hurry, the conferences, the dinner invitations, the smell of disinfectant, the meeting reminders. ~ Riikka Pulkkinen

As human beings in general ... I don't think we've grown that much. Technology wise, we are getting too intelligent for our own good. ~ Butterfly Boucher

The art of governing [focusing] the passions is more useful, and more important, than many things in the search and pursuit of which we spend our days. Without this art, riches and health, and skill and knowledge, will give us little satisfaction; and whatsoever else we be, we can be neither happy, nor wise, nor good. ~ John Jortin

To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is misunderstood or that he is different; none of this is necessarily complimentary, but it will flatter him infinitely more that merely telling him that he is brilliant, or noble, or wise, or good. ~ Helen Rowland

What I want veterans to know is that VA is here to care for them. VA is a good system - health care wise, safety wise - highly comparable to any other system out there. Our oversight reviews tell us that. I'm very comfortable in the quality of our system. ~ Eric Shinseki

Search well and be wise, nor believe that self-willed pride will ever be better than good counsel. ~ Aeschylus

For this essential acceptance, the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the intellectuals. ~ Murray N. Rothbard

Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good. ~ Baltasar Gracian

Job's avoidance of rebellion against God has nothing to do with God being good or wise or anything like that; it's strictly because God is so powerful, and you don't fight something when you are so much weaker than that which you would fight. ~ George C. Williams

I love tranquil solitude
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery. ~ W.B.Yeats

The truth is that you are innately good, wise, and powerful. You were created in and for good. ~ Deborah Day

As Eckhart, one of Otto's many sources, had asserted centuries earlier, referring to the Other as "God," the religious seeker must set aside "any idea about God as being good, wise, [or] compassionate. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

It's been very nice. I haven't gotten out too much because we've been working a lot but other wise the people have been very nice and I've had a good time. ~ Bo Derek

Defensive backs are the best players on the field. But when you get an exceptional player like a Deion Sanders or a Darrell Green - these guys are fast and they have very good technique. You have to work a little harder. ~ Jerry Rice

It is all very well to say that all princesses are good and beautiful and charming; but this is usually a determined optimism on everybody's part rather than the truth. After all, if a girl is a princess, she is undeniably a princess, and the best must be made of it; and how much pleasanter it would be if she were good and beautiful. There's always hope that if enough people believe as though she is, a little of it will rub off. ~ Robin McKinley

You're not dying, you just can't think of anything good to do. ~ Ferris Bueller

We were five heterosexual, good-looking men. We competed against each other for the sexiest girls ... I won. ~ Simon Le Bon

You took my paper smudged with tears and you read it out loud. You told me what worked in the essay, and what didn't work. You asked me questions about word choice, pacing, and something you called political symbolism. You asked me what I was really trying to say with the essay and suggested I start with saying exactly that. You challenged me to use the rest of the essay to discover ideas and questions I didn't already know and feel. "A good question anchored in real curiosity is much more important than a cliché or forced metaphor," you told me. ~ Kiese Laymon

Love demands change. Love demands work. Love isn't a piece of candy you get for being a good boy so you have something that makes you feel good. It's hard work. The hardest in the world. ~ Yoav Blum

Or do you think that a man must first become perfect before he can do good? ~ Robin Hobb

The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule , between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world : that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war , which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands. ~ George Orwell

This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by all that gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects. ~ Jane Austen

Good-bye, and may you always see a happy face in your looking-glass! ~ L.M. Montgomery

If you are stymied as a writer, if it's just not coming together, then take the pressure off and don't feel that you need to write 1,000 words today; just write one really good sentence. ~ Chris Bohjalian

Usually we think a person is obligated to do something that would benefit many people, but what if that "something" is committing murder? Which is more important, doing good - or not doing wrong? ~ William Irwin

Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No one ... gets left behind. An instrument of good. ~ Aaron Sorkin

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous,
tranquil contribution of all
to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty.
~ Oscar A. Romero

In a good book the best is between the lines. ~ Swedish Proverb

It's important to teach your kids the value of being active by setting a good example. ~ Heidi Klum

Well, basically, when you get SNL, everyone wants to take a meeting, just in case you end up being good. ~ Andy Samberg

I've seen enough cowboys in my life that I know I don't want one for a husband." ...Victoria

"Every good man I know is a cowboy."...Colt ~ Scarlett Dunn

I apologize now. I apologize because of the terrible mess the planet is in. But it has always been a mess. There have never been any "Good Old Days," there have just been days. And as I say to my grandchildren, "Don't look at me. I just got here myself." So you know what I'm going to do? I declare everybody here a member of Generation A. Tomorrow is another day for all of us. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Being generous or doing things for others actually makes me feel good so I don't do it because I hope karma will come round and get me and I'll benefit from it. ~ David Schwimmer

Times have changed since a certain author was executed for murdering his publisher. They say that when the author was on the scaffold he said good-bye to the minister and to the reporters, and then he saw some publishers sitting in the front row below, and to them he did not say good-bye. He said instead, "I'll see you again." ~ James M. Barrie

The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn't help at all; one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

He had Parkinson's disease for about, I'd say diagnosed for about 11 of the last years of his life. And treatment was not as good as it is now, of course. We're still going along and he died in '85 and he was 77. ~ Lynn Redgrave

The rules seem to be these: If you have written a successful novel, everyone invites you to write short stories. If you have written some good short stories, everyone wants you to write a novel. But nobody wants anything until you have already proved yourself by being published somewhere else. ~ James A. Michener

I try to be sensitive, but the atmosphere I create is very supportive. One overriding premise of the series is that guilt is not heritable. It's good to know about them, but you are not responsible for them. You don't have to apologize for them. It's a process of knowing, and the more you know, the richer the sense of yourself. The firmer your foundation as a human being is ~ Henry Louis Gates

I grew up with an ambition and determination without which I would have been a good deal happier. I thought a lot and developed the faraway look of a dreamer, for it was always the distant heights that fascinated me and drew me to them in spirit. I was not sure what could be accomplished with tenacity and little else, but the target was set high and each rebuff only saw me more determined to see at least one major dream to its fulfillment. ~ Earl Denman

Underline in your books, jot notes in the margins, and turn the corners of your pages down. Public education is a beautiful dream, but public classrooms too often train students not to mark, write in, disfigure, or in any way make books permanently their own. You're a grownup now, so buy your own books if you possibly can. In my opinion, a cheap paperback filled with your own notes is worth five times as much as a beautiful collector's edition. ~ Susan Wise Bauer

It can be good to be given what you want; it can be better, in the end, never to have it proved to you that this is what you wanted ~ Mary Renault

Men are moral beings in their untrammelled nature. If constraint and coercion can once be removed they will be happy and if they are happy they will also be good ... ~ Barry Unsworth

A tree's size doesn't determine the size of its fruit. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I'm also married for the first time, and I have two kids. So there's some kind of good karma right now. ~ Lindsey Buckingham

I never took you for a coward, Stevie,' he said quietly and her gaze swung back, angrily. 'Did
I make you mad? Good. I'm glad. Because you make me mad. If today didn't change anything
for you, then you're either a liar or a fool. And I never took you for either of those, either.' He
leaned closer, until he could see every dark eyelash. 'I'm not a coward or liar, but I might be a
fool because I'm not giving up on you. Nor am I giving you up. So consider yourself on notice,
Detective Mazzetti. Things will be different when you get out of here. I'm not going to wait
forever, because we don't have forever. If things had been any different this morning, we might
not even have this moment. So if you're not "ready", then you'd best spend your time in here
figuring out how to get "ready ~ Karen Rose

An egoist is always intelligent, never wise. ~ Raheel Farooq

Sure, It's a good thing, though." She leaned against the ship's wheel, squinted into the sun. "Because you're a women. If they're scared of you, they'll listen to you."
"That's how it works with men too."
Marjani shook her head and laughed. "Not always. Men have the option of earning respects. ~ Cassandra Rose Clarke

If not you, then who? If not now, then when? ~ Andrzej Kolikowski

I gave birth to my first son in April 1986. I thought it would be a good goal to get back in shape after having a baby if I ran the New York City Marathon. I ran in it November 1986. I had just shot the 'Sports Illustrated' swimsuit issue, so I was in great shape. ~ Kim Alexis

For those few of you who never heard of 'The Secret,' it's a worldwide best selling book touting the benefits of positive and affirmative thinking, and sending good energy out into the world. ~ Jenna Morasca

Parents need to be lucky to be good in parenting; children have to be lucky to have great parents! ~ Amit Chatterjee

I would strongly recommend any young man to stay away from criminal law. It's not a good place to be, unfortunately. ~ F. Lee Bailey

Whatever makes you comfortable," he says easily. "I don't want you to worry. I'll take good care of you." I smile. And believe him. ~ K.A. Tucker

Is that food?" Shiro asked, pointing at the large paper bag in Yumei's hand.

Emi blinked at the bag. "Is that a takeout bag? How did you order takeout?"

"I stole it. I have no idea what it contains."

"It smells good, at least," Shiro said optimistically. As he crossed the room, his arm brushed hers, sending a little warm shiver through her. Relieving Yumei of the bag, he dropped down at the table and shoved the broken teacup out of the way.

Yumei hissed angrily.

"It's just a cup. You have too much junk. Are you a raven or a magpie?"

The crows swooped down and landed on the table as Shiro ripped the bag open to investigate its contents. Emi tried not to think about the unlucky human who was now mysteriously short his dinner. Yumei started picking up pieces of the tea cup, his expressionless face vaguely gloomy as he collected its remains. ~ Annette Marie

Hmmm ... cooking with wine? I usually drink wine while cooking ... I do a good braised short ribs with cabernet, though. We're big red wine drinkers here. All that research showing that it's good for you takes the guilt away. ~ Alafair Burke

In other words Yates had remembered the lesson of his first great master, Fitzgerald - namely, that people rarely say what they mean, and good dialogue is a matter of catching one's characters "in the very act of giving themselves away. ~ Blake Bailey

I think that's important to women in comedy, that we get a lot of the good lines and you're not just the girlfriend or the sister. ~ Sharon Horgan

It was us they were talking about, with the objectivity of businessmen completing a routine transaction. In Barrett there wasn't even the hint of remorse or conscience. Some folks, they say, are born incapable of those things. Often they behave beyond suspicion, those sick people, until it's too late. Sometimes they're good-looking, charming, intelligent. Maybe they liked to pull the wings off flies more than other kids. But boys will be boys. If they served in the Army they made lousy soldiers, complaining and griping all the time about discipline, until they got a taste of combat. They often won medals, then, and were afraid but didn't go stiff and inadequate with fear like some of their buddies. They felt above the crowd. They were arrogant. Laws didn't apply to them. They could kill you with an absolute lack of concern if it suited them. They were called psychopathic personalities, P.P.'s, and Barrett was one of them.

It looked as if we were going to die. ~ Stephen Marlowe

One fine day you decide to talk less and less about the things you care most about, and when you have to say something, it costs you an effort . . . You're good and sick of hearing yourself talk . . . you abridge . . . You give up … For thirty years you've been talking . . . You don't care about being right anymore. You even lose your desire to keep hold of the small place you'd reserved yourself among the pleasures of life . . . You're fed up … From that time on you're content to eat a little something, cadge a little warmth, and sleep as much as possible on the road to nowhere. To rekindle your interest, you'd have to think up some new grimaces to put on in the presence of others . . . But you no longer have the strength to renew your repertory. You stammer. Sure, you still look for excuses for hanging around with the boys, but death is there too, stinking, right beside you, it's there the whole time, less mysterious than a game of poker. The only thing you continue to value is petty regrets, like not finding time to run out to Bois-Colombes to see your uncle while he was still alive, the one whose little song died forever one afternoon in February. That horrible little regret is all we have left of life, we've vomited up the rest along the way, with a good deal of effort and misery. We're nothing now but an old lamppost with memories on a street where hardly anyone passes anymore. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine