Richard Cohen Quotes

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

I've never had any desire to be good. I don't like goodness particularly.

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.

I think I'm a decent person.

I'm a good man.

I'm a good person. I've led a good life.

I am not selfish.

I'm a good guy with a good heart, and I have good intentions.

No one believes that they're a bad person at the end of the day.

I've never been a bad guy - never acted like a tough guy.

Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.

I think every human being has good intentions in one aspect of life and some in every.

And one of the elders of the city , said , speak to us of good and evil. And he answered : You are good in countless ways , and you are not evil when you are not good .

Every man has at times in his mind the Ideal of what he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and complete, or it may be quite low and insufficient; yet in all men, that really seek to improve, it is better than the actual character... Man never falls so low, that he can see nothing higher than himself.

A man is not aware of his virtues (if any). Nevertheless, one hopes that they exist.

I think most of us maintain some sort of fantasy in our minds that we are heroes, if only secretly, that we could really be amazing if only given a chance. That we could all be loved one day. You can always think of yourself as being transcendent or heroic. I think we all are.

We would much rather blame nature for what we don't like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.

If I were a chocolate I'd eat myself. Seriously, we're all interested in ourselves and what other people are saying about us to some extent.

All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it?

What mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbours? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit.

Each of us will one day be judged by our standard of life, not by our standard of living; by our measure of giving, not by our measure of wealth; by our simple goodness, not by our seeming greatness.