Benevolent Quotes - Page 6

• Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.

  William M. Evarts

  Father, Men, Divine Wisdom

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• In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy,
  but simply justice.

  Frederick Douglass

  People, Justice, Pity

  Frederick Douglass (2013). “Selected Addresses of Frederick Douglass”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

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• There is a striking parallel between the spreading of germs and the spreading of ideas or propaganda. On the one hand we are dealing with a virus which can be transported and transmitted under certain conditions which favor or limit its transportation or transmission: on the other hand with ideas, religions, and doctrines, which can be described as germs, benevolent or malevolent, according to the point of view one takes up. These germs can either remain at their source and be sterile, or emerge in the spreading of infection.

  Andre Siegfried

  Views, Hands, Ideas

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• If you see failure as a monster stalking you, or one that has
  already ruined your life, take another look. That monster can
  become a benevolent teacher, opening your mind to successes
  you cannot now imagine.

  Martha Beck

  Teacher, Mind, Monsters

  "How to fail your way to success" by Martha Beck, www.cnn.com. January 2, 2008.

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• That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is going to cave in.

  Alan Ball

  Life, Beauty, Heart

  "Fictional character: Ricky Fitts". "American Beauty", www.imdb.com. September 8, 1999.

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• What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind.

  Abigail Adams

  Family, Wise, Children

  Abigail Adams, John P. Kaminski (2009). “The Quotable Abigail Adams”, p.90, Harvard University Press

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• The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Nice, Ideas

  Taxes and Morals, delivered 22 January 1906, New York

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• Freedom received though the efforts of others, however benevolent, cannot be retained when such effort is withdrawn.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Freedom, Effort

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• His response is more than sensible. It reflects his understanding that evens unfold as a refelction of precise karmic order and that a benevolent response in all circumstances will be the most healing one. I think he is so universally admired becuase he exemplifies by his behavior the truth that the essence of natural mind, unclouded by greed or anger or delusion, is that of peace.

  Sylvia Boorstein

  Peace, Healing, Thinking

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• The director's in charge of every single decision [in film]. It's a dictatorship.It's a benevolent dictatorship, but it's true. It's every single shot. There's nothing arbitrary.

  Matt Damon

  Decision, Directors, Arbitrary

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The misfortunes which God is represented in the book of Job as allowing Satan to inflict on Job, merely to test his faith, are indications, if not of positive malevolence, at least of a suspicious and ruthless insecurity, which is characteristic more of a tyrant than of a wholly powerful and benevolent deity.

  A.J. Ayer

  God, Religious, Jobs

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• Muslims have been an almost entirely benevolent force in the 20th century. They did not wreak the havoc the Western powers wreaked on the world. They have not come anywhere near to the environmental degradation that we've done to the planet. So I think Muslims need to be seen in the proper light. They're mostly decent, hardworking people, people with deep family values, and they want to live in peace.

  Hamza Yusuf

  Thinking, Light, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• If you don't believe there's some organising principle, or somebody up in the sky pulling the strings, then it can be very stressful. And nature itself is very arbitrary - it's not malevolent or benevolent; it doesn't even know we're here.

  Michael Shannon

  Believe, Sky, Principles

  "Michael Shannon: 'I'm not trying to exorcise any demons'" by Catherine Shoard, www.theguardian.com. November 30, 2011.

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• There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed, that instances of it are but too infrequent and flagrant both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires, is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.

  James Madison

  Grateful, Inspire, Honor

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.281, Coventry House Publishing

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• The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Real, Heart, Light

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• The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Thoughtful, Smoking, Style

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “The Book of Snobs: And, Sketches and Travels in London ; [Character Sketches]”, p.242

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• Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.

  Horace Mann

  Education, Mean, Science

  Horace Mann (1957). “The Republic and the School: The Education of Free Men”

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• If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.

  William Butler Yeats

  Powerful, Heart, Destiny

  William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind hearted, fat, benevolent people do.

  Mark Twain

  People, Greed, Wish

  Mark Twain (1994). “Mark Twain on the damned human race”

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• American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.

  James Madison

  Country, Mean, Law

  James Madison, Robert Allen Rutland (1996). “The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series”

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• And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.

  Thomas Paine

  Heart, Men, Religion

  Thomas Paine (2007). “The Age of Reason”, p.70, Cosimo, Inc.

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• It seems foolhardy to assume that the armed state will necessarily be benevolent. The American political tradition is, for good or ill, based in large measure on a healthy mistrust of the state.

  Sanford Levinson

  Trust, America, Political

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• Nature is not benevolent; Nature is just, gives pound for pound, measure for measure, makes no exceptions, never tempers her decrees with mercy, or winks at any infringement of her laws.

  John Burroughs

  Nature, Law, Giving

  John Burroughs (1913). “The Writings of John Burroughs”

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• Firstly I commit my Soul into the hands of God, its great and benevolent author.

  Josiah Bartlett

  Hands, Soul, Commit

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• If the role is right and it's another situation of having a benevolent genius at the head of it, someone who likes actors, and will protect the actors from the ravages of reality-TV drama. It's a brutal world, and you need to have a strong creative team who can stand up to the network.

  Olivia Williams

  Strong, Drama, Team

  Source: film.avclub.com

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