The Fine Print

It’s not National Literacy Day or Reading Week or even Tree Awareness Tuesday (at least not as far as I know). But I’m in a bookish state of mind. So today, for your reading pleasure, I share a few shining quotations on the theme of good deeds… all found in literary classics. Some are thought-provoking, some are witty, and all are sure to resonate with you.

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare)

“Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds.”
The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)

“Goodness is the only value that seems in this world of appearances to have any claim to be an end in itself. Virtue is its own reward.”
The Summing Up (W. Somerset Maugham)

“To be good is noble, but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
Following the Equator (Mark Twain)

“We cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefits we receive must be rendered again line for line deed for deed to somebody.”
Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”
The Horse and His Boy (C.S. Lewis)

“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”
Walden (Henry David Thoreau)

How about you? What’s your favourite quotation, story or book about kindness? Inspire us!

That cheeky Mark Twain also wrote, “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”