Good Nature Quotes - Page 4

• In this our talking America, we are ruined by our good nature and listening on all sides. This compliance takes away the power ofbeing greatly useful.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Talking, America, Listening

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.215, Penguin

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• Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life; Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend; Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.

  Joseph Addison

  Marriage, Husband, Giving

  Joseph Addison (1867). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Ay Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.22

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• Jonathan Coe's genial, likeable novel can only be described as a kind of lit-prog-rock concept album... Coe recreates the period with such loving accuracy that I frankly suspect him of having planted a secret microphone in the tin Oxford Mathematical Instruments box I carried around in my school days... As always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read.

  Peter Bradshaw

  School, Intelligent, Oxford

  "Boys will be boys" by Peter Bradshaw, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2001.

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• Our good nature and endearing qualities will not arouse the answers to our prayers. Rather it is our mischievous, dishonest attributes that provide the master keys to heaven. When we identify and work to transform our self-centered qualities and crooked characteristics, the key turns and the gates unlock. Blessings and good fortune are now free to rain down upon us.

  Yehuda Berg

  Prayer, Rain, Blessing

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• The enjoyment that comes from our acts of kindness give us a glimpse of the world that might be, hopefully our future world. Good natured, friendly, human.

  David Dunn

  Kindness, Giving, Friendly

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• The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.

  John Adams

  Atheism, Preaching, Malice

  John Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.35

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• The gentle fair on nervous tea relies,
  Whilst gay good-nature sparkles in her eyes;
  An inoffensive scandal fluttering round,
  Too rough to tickle, and too light to wound.

  George Crabbe

  Eye, Gay, Light

  George Crabbe, John Crabbe (1834). “The poetical works of the Rev. George Crabbe: in eight volumes”, p.300

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• The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.

  Horace Walpole

  Morning, Sleep, Night

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• As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity.

  Plutarch

  House, Humanity, Temples

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.62

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• Any one may do a casual act of good-nature; but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.

  Laurence Sterne

  Generosity, May, Casual

  Laurence Sterne (1905). “A Sentimental Journey”

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• Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is made up of meanness and malice. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and the measure of happiness abated. It laments over prosperity, and sickens at the sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit as well as good nature.

  Jeremy Collier

  Sight, Envy, Wish

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• Charity and good-nature give a sanction to the most common actions; and pride and ill-nature make our best virtues despicable.

  William Wycherley

  Pride, Giving, Charity

  William Wycherley (1849). “The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. With Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh Hunt. A New Edition”, p.19

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• Dear gourmands! my bowels yearn towards them as a father's toward his children. They are so good natured! They have such sparkling eyes!

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

  Children, Father, Food

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• Mother, when your children are irritable, do not make them more so by scolding and fault-finding, but correct their irritability by good nature and mirthfulness. Irritability comes from errors in food, bad air, too little sleep, a necessity for change of scene and surroundings; from confinement in close rooms, and lack of sunshine.

  Herbert Spencer

  Mother, Children, Sleep

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• If the tools are bad, nature's voice is muffled. If the tools are good, nature will give us a clear answer to a clear question.

  Freeman Dyson

  Science, Voice, Giving

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• At best, the natural good-nature is edged with complaint or has changed into sullenness and gloom. And now and then it blazes forth in veiled but hot anger.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Hot, Now And Then, Natural

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2012). “The Souls of Black Folk”, p.79, Courier Corporation

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• Either over neither, both over either/or, live-and-let-live over stand-or die, high spirits over low, energy over apathy, wit over dullness, jokes over homilies, good humor over jokes, good nature over bad, feeling over sentiment, truth over poetry, consciousness over explanations, tragedy over pathos, comedy over tragedy, entertainment over art, private over public, generosity over meanness, charity over murder, love over charity, irreplaceable over interchangeable, divergence over concurrence, principle over interest, people over principle.

  Marvin Mudrick

  Art, People, Generosity

  Marvin Mudrick (1981). “Nobody Here But Us Chickens”

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• Nothing is rarer than true good nature; they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Weak, Goodness

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• This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.

  Honore de Balzac

  Work, Pride, Mind

  "A Daughter of Eve". Book by Honoré de Balzac, 1839.

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• Good sense and good nature are never separated; and good nature is the product of right reason.

  John Dryden

  Reason, Good Sense, Products

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• Have as much good nature as good sense since they generally are companions.

  William Wycherley

  Goodness, Companion, Good Sense

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• Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

  Bertrand Russell

  Struggle, Quality, Needs

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.1, Lulu Press, Inc

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• I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me. But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.

  Stephen Fry

  Teenage, Writing, Years

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• The world is good natured to people who are good natured.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Positive, People, World

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• A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

  Thomas More

  Character, Men, May

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