Orson Scott Card Quotes

A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.

A man is only as good as what he loves.

No man-made law will ever eliminate cruelty and evil from every human heart.

God sees us with the eyes of a Father. He sees our defects, errors, and blemishes. But He also sees our value. What did Jesus know that enabled Him to do what He did? Here’s part of the answer: He knew the value of people. He knew that each human being is a treasure. And because He did, people were not a source of stress, but a source of joy.

Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. [...] If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.

Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.

Evil conquered?' said Gwydion. 'You have learned much, but learn this last and hardest of lessons. You have conquered only the enchantments of evil. That was the easiest of your tasks, only a beginning, not an ending. Do you believe evil itself to be so quickly overcome? Not so long as men still hate and slay each other, when greed and anger goad them. Against these even a flaming sword cannot prevail, but only that portion of good in all men's hearts whose flame can never be quenched.

Evil can and is overcome every minute of every day.

Many of our moments of prosociality, of altruism and Good Samaritanism, are acts of restitution, attempts to counter our antisocial moments.

I boil down people to 'good heart' or 'bad heart' - meaning they're basically good or basically not.

If you look at life with any honesty and intelligence, it's clear that human nature is dark, vile, selfish, and despondent. But I also see a force in human nature, namely grace, that sometimes works against our natural moral entropy.

I think 'Scrooge' is the best of the Christmas stories. Every child warms to it because it's about one man's transformation. It's saying that it's never too late to change, and that's a good feeling to have at Christmas.

I believe there's good in everybody.

Human beings are capable of great good, but also of the basest evil.

If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.

A good heart 'is worth gold.

It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice.

Christmas means 'giving,' and the gift without the giver is bare. Give of yourselves; give of your substance; give of your heart and mind. "Christmas means 'compassion and love' and, most of all 'forgiveness' How poor indeed would be our lives without the influence of His teachings and His matchless example. "He whose birth we commemorate this season is more than the symbol of a holiday. He is the Son of God, the Redeemer of mankind, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace.

Mercy is the true power that can save humanity and the world from sin and evil.

[...] even in the cruelest human being there can exist a flower of good. Maybe just the tiniest blossom, in need of water and sunlight, but a flower just the same.

I think it's one of the kindest things you can do to the very wicked, to give them time to repent.

I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time. . . I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better.

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.

Love is the medicine of all moral evil. By it the world is to be cured of sin.

The way to overcome evil is to love something that is good.