Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The Bible improved my ethical IQ. I started to act like a good person. I tried not to gossip, and lie, and covet, and just by pretending I was a good person, I think I actually became a little bit better of a person. I'm not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but it was a baby step.

To be good, we must do good; and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

I've always been a good person, but I wanna be, like, the best person.

It is never too early to try and plant [good principles] in a child, and never too late to cultivate them in the most neglected person.

Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one's behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

Education is the art of making man ethical.

It is by doing good that we become good.

It's certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

I'm a good man, and I'm gonna become a better man.

What I desire most in my life is to become a better person. I genuinely want to be good.

Try to be a better person everyday.

If anyone says you are bad, this mean he wants you to be good, and I am here to be good, and I want to be good. If they say I have done bad, then they should also give me a chance to change myself for good.

It's better to die doing good than to live doing evil.

We must progress to the stage of doing all the right things for all the right reasons instead of doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.

It's not always easy to do the right thing. But, doing the right thing makes you strong, it builds character.

By doing good we become good.

Those who seek a better life must first become a better person.

Humanity's moral conscience progresses, slowly yet surely.