Thomas Paine Quotes

We must serve the people worthily, and not occupy ourselves in trying to please them. The best way, to gain their affections is to do them good.

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.

To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

Let goodness go with the doing.

Power to do good is the true and lawful act of aspiring; for good thoughts (though God accept them), yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground.

Every time we deny ourselves in order to serve someone else, we grow in Christ.

At the end of the day, will God be interested primarily in whether I have been kind and helped others, or in whether I was baptized and how?

Serving God is doing good to man, but praying is thought an easier service and therefore more generally chosen.

The purpose of good works isn't to change us or save us; rather, it's the demonstration of the change within us.

To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.

The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself.

Even in dreams doing good is not wasted.

Whenever you serve others in any way, you are actually serving God.

You can have the 'golden rule' - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. But then you take it one step farther - where you just do good unto others, period. Just for the sake of it.

It's not enough not to be evil. We also actively try to be good.

Men resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow creatures.

There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their spite against us, as by doing what good we can wherever we be come.

Instead of closing our eyes and bowing our heads, sometimes God wants us to keep our eyes open for people in need, do something about it, and bow our whole lives to Him instead.

If we can refrain from harming others in our actions & words, we can start to give serious attention to actively doing good.

No man is a Christian who cheats his fellows, perverts the truth, or speaks of a "clean bomb" yet he will be the first to make public his faith in God.

We talk about equality, about happiness, about freedom - and about the spiritual values of religion, and about God - and in our daily life, we act on principles which are different, and partly contradictory.

When evangelizers rise from prayer, their hearts are more open; freed of self-absorption, they are desirous of doing good and sharing their lives with others.

Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.