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. . . GOOD DEEDS see "KINDNESS" for related links Men resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow creatures. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. Try to be of some use to others. --Joseph Hall (15741656) English bishop, moral philosopher, and satirist. He is good that does good to others. If he suffers for the good he does, he is better still; and if he suffers from them to whom he did good, he is arrived to that height of goodness that nothing but an increase of his sufferings can add to it; if it proves his death, his virtue is at its summit it is heroism complete. --Jean de La Bruyθre (16451696) French essayist and moralist. The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. --Charles Lamb (17751834) English essayist. He that does good to another does good also to himself, not only in the consequence, but in the very act; for the consciousness of well-doing is in itself ample reward. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. Goodness is the only investment which never fails. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. I shall pass through this world but once; any kind good things, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, or dumb animal, let me do it now. Let me now deter it, or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. --attributed to various people  . . see: "INTENTIONS" see: "PLANS" Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? --Bible "James" 2:1516 Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. --Louis Brandeis (18561941) American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [19161939]. In "Olmstead et al. vs. United States," 277 U.S. 438, 478 [1928]. Political morality is a morality of consequences, not intentions. You may intend to achieve a peaceful, non-racist South Africa but if the predictable consequences of your actions is civil war and dictatorship, then you are behaving immorally. You may intend to create world peace but if the predictable consequence of your action is military adventurism by the Soviet Union, then you are behaving immorally. You may intend to lift the downtrodden up from their poverty but if the predictable consequence of your action is economic dislocation and decline, then you are behaving immorally. Political morality is about responsibility, not showing off. To be responsible, though, you have to think, and the contemporary left is distinguished by its principled refusal to think. Only slogans are acceptable to it: "Free Canada, Trade Mulroney"; "Refuse the Cruise"; "Boycott Grapes." Whatever its other intellectual errors, the left understands human psychology. Chanting and yelling can indeed stifle questions and doubts, at least for a while. Still, the evidence is on virtually every one of the Left's most treasured beliefs. They are all wrong. The planned economy doesn't work, appeasing the Soviets doesn't work, Third World revolutions don't work. It takes considerable gullibility and ignorance to be unaware of how spectacularly, disastrously wrong these delusions are and gullibility and ignorance are not moral virtues. --David Frum (1960 ) Canadian-born Conservative author. - kap posts to USENET newsgrouup: When Alyssa was born I went to the book store and bought 'Grimm's Fairy Tales.' I thought this was a book that my mother read to me when I was very young. Pleased with myself, I sent it to Greg and Annie. About two weeks later Annie calls up and says "why the heck did you send me this book!" I said it was for Alyssa and they were nice fairy tales. Turns out they weren't. They were very depressing fairy tales with a lot of killing and general mayhem. Very dark tales. That's when I remembered that it was 'Anderson's Fairy Tales' that were the good ones. And Aesop's Fables. [. . . ] The day I bought 'Grimm's', I also got a book on England for Greg. He told me that he wanted to build a model of an English castle, and he needed a picture of one. So I bought a beautiful book about England published in England. It must of contained 400 beautiful pictures, and of course, lots of illustrations. So what does Greg do? Instead of keeping this wonderful book, he makes copies of the castles and returns BOTH books to Borders in New York. --kap - Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. --Daniel Webster (17821852) American orator and politician. - The souls of men of feeble purpose are the graveyards of good intentions. --unk. ;void(0)) GOOD OLD DAYS . . see: "CHANGE" see: "CHANGING TIMES" see: "NOSTALGIA" see: "TIME" see: "YESTERDAY" see "MEMORIES" for other related links Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. --Franklin Pierce Adams (18811960) American columnist and member of the Algonquin Round Table. Not a day passes without producing some uneasy discussion of supposed social decrepitude; falling off of the birth rate; - decline of rural population; lower of army standards; multiplication of suicides; increase of insanity or idiocy, of cancer, of tuberculosis; signs of nervous exhaustion, of enfeebled vitality, "habits" of alcoholism and drugs, - failure of eye-sight in the young, and so on, without end, coupled with suggestions for correcting these evils. --Henry Brooks Adams (18381918) American historian & man of letters. "A Letter to American Teachers of History" [1910] - I see Bonaparte, a mean one if ever I've seen one And Nero fiddlin' thru that lovely blaze; Antoinette... dainty queen... with her quaint guillotine Bwahahaha! Those were the good old days! I see Indians draggin' an empty covered wagon When scalping the settlers was the latest craze And that glorious morn Jack the Ripper was born Bwahahaha! Those were the good old days! I'd sit... in my rocking chair, Peace... fully rocking there, Counting my blessings by the score The rack was in fashion The plagues were my passion Each day held a new joy in store! I see cannibals munchin' a missionary luncheon The years may have flown, but the memory stays Like the hopes that were dashed when the stock market crashed Ya-ha-ha-ha! Those were the good old days! --Richard Adler (1921 ) & Jerry Ross (19261955) American songwriting team whose successes include "The Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees." "The Good Old Days," (song) from "Damn Yankees" [1955 play]." [1955 play]. - In every age "the good old days" were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them. --Brooks Atkinson (18941984) American journalist and critic. _Once Around the Sun_ [1951], "February 8" The husband was prohibited to use any violence to his wife, aliter quam ad virum, ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae, licited et rationabiliter pertinet [other than what is reasonably necessary to the discipline and correction of the wife]. The civil law gave the husband the same, or a larger, authority over his wife; allowing him, for some misdemeanors, flagellis et fustibus acriter verbare uxorem [to wound his wife severely with whips and fists]; for others, only modicam castigationem adhibere [to apply modest corrective punishment. --William Blackstone (17231780) English jurist. - 22nd Dec., 1900. The old century is very nearly out, and leaves the world in a pretty pass, and the British Empire is playing the devil in it as never an empire before on so large a scale. We may live to see its fall. All the nations of Europe are making the same hell upon earth in China, massacring and pillaging and raping in the captured cities as outrageously as in the Middle Ages. The Emperor of Germany gives the word for slaughter and the Pope looks on and approves. In South Africa our troops are burning farms under Kitchener's command, and the Queen and the two houses of Parliament, and the bench of bishops thank God publicly and vote money for the work. The Americans are spending fifty millions a year on slaughtering the Filipinos; the King of the Belgians has invested his whole fortune on the Congo, where he is brutalizing the Negroes to fill his pockets. The French and Italians for the moment are playing a less prominent part in the slaughter, but their inactivity grieves them. The whole white race is reveling openly in violence, as though it had never pretended to be Christian. God's equal curse be on them all! So ends the famous nineteenth century into which we were so proud to have been born.... 31st Dec., 1900. I bid good-bye to the old century, may it rest in peace as it has lived in war. Of the new century I prophesy nothing except that it will see the decline of the British Empire. Other worse empires will rise perhaps in its place, but I shall not live to see the day. It all seems a very little matter here in Egypt, with the pyramids watching us as they watched Joseph, when, as a young man four thousand years ago, perhaps in this very garden, he walked and gazed at the sunset behind them, wondering about the future just as I did this evening. And so, poor wicked nineteenth century, farewell! --Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (18401922) English poet and publicist. _My Diaries, 18881914_ [1921]. - I have been accustomed for some time past, to apply leeches to the inflamed testicle, which practice has always been followed with most happy effects. --William Buchan (17291805) English doctor. _Domestic Medicine, or a Treatise on the Presentation and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines_ [1797]. We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time. --Art Buchwald (19252007) American journalist and humorist who won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding Commentary. He seems To have seen better days, as who has not Who has seen yesterday? --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. _Werner_ [1822], act i, sc. i Those were good old times, it may be thought, when baron and peasant feasted together. But the one could not read, and made his mark with a sword-pommel, and the other was held as dear as a favorite dog. Pure and simple times were those of our grandfathers, it may be. Possibly not so pure as we may think, however, and with a simplicity ingrained with some bigotry and a good deal of conceit. --Edwin Hubbel Chapin (18141880) American clergyman and author. The man on the news is going over the top Now he'll say anything so his show don't flop Wall Street's down, so what And according to the market analysts The world's gonna stop They shout the story to the nation Pass on the panic to the population This is end of civilization, It's all over now --Ray Davies (1944 ) English rock musician. "Drift Away" I have forgot much, Cynara! Gone with the wind. --Ernest Dowson (18671900) English poet. "Non Sum Qualis Eram" (I am not what I was.) [1896] - Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce? --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Society and Solitude_ [1870], "Work and Days" These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. - When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood. --Sam Ewing (1920-2001) American writer and humorist. The Golden Age never was the present Age. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1750] A good many of us today are content to be fat, dumb and happy. With a polyunsaturated diet of the coming 35-hour week, the fly-now-pay- later vacation, and fringe benefits, many of us live in a chromium-plated world where the major enemy we face is crab-grass. --John H. Glenn, Jr (1921 ) American astronaut and U.S. Senator [1974-1999]. Address to the Associated Press, quoted in "New York Times" [23 April 1963]. The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. --Horace Greeley (18111872) American newspaper editor. I hear the human race Is fallin' on its face And hasn't very far to go; But every whippoorwill Is sellin' me a bill, And tellin' me it just ain't so. --Oscar Hammerstein II (18951960) American songwriter. "A Cockeyed Optimist" (song) in the play By and by we shall have balloons and pass over to Europe between sun and sun. Oh, for the good old days of heavy post-coaches and speed at the rate of six miles an hour! --Philip Hone (17801851) New York businessman and political leader. His diary gave a comprehensive description of New York life during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. _Diary_ "28 November 1844" I empathize with those who yearn for a simpler world, for some bygone golden age of domestic and international tranquility. Perhaps for a few people at some time in history there was such an age. But for the mass of humanity it is an age that never was. --Shirley Hufstedler (1925 ) American jurist and U.S. secretary of education [1980-1981]. Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. _The Rambler_ #50 (English twice-weekly journal 17501752). What charms me [in America] is that all citizens are brethren. --Marquis de Lafayette (17571834) French aristocrat who fought with the American colonists against the British in the American Revolution. Letter to his wife [20 June 1777]. A correspondent from Hamburg, speaking of the invasion of American trade, says: "Incidentally, it may be remarked that the typewriting machine with which this article is written, as well as the thousands nay, hundreds of thousands of others that are in use throughout the world, were made in America; that it stands on an American table, in an office furnished with American desks, bookcases, and chairs, which cannot be made in Europe of equal quality, so practical and convenient, for a similar price." --Jack London [John Griffith Chaney] (18761916) American novelist and short-story writer. _The War of Classes_ [1905] Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. --Thomas Babington Macaulay (18001859) English politician and historian. _History of England_ [1849-1861] , vol. I, ch. 1 Men ever praise the olden time, and find fault with the present, though often without reason . . . Having grown old, they also laud all they remember to have seen in their youth. Their opinion is generally erroneous . . . . We never know the whole truth about the past. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. _Discourses On The First Ten Books Of Livius_ - Forget the Nightly News; Life Is Getting Better August 17, 2004 By George Melloan The Wall Street Journal [. . . ] When you go behind the news and look at a broad array of statistical measures of the state of the world, the clear message is that life is getting better, not worse, for most people. [. . . ] Life expectancy at birth has increased for all socioeconomic groups, with black men making the most dramatic gains, to 68.2 years in 2000 from 60 in 1970. Despite the well-documented failures of public education, the U.S. citizenry has become better educated, with more than 25% of those over age 25 now holding a college degree, compared to only 7.7% in 1960. Partly because of rising female employment, the median income of white households rose 19% between 1980 and 2000 and that of black families 39% from a lower base. Vice-presidential candidate John Edwards' class-warfare rhetoric notwithstanding, only 12.1% of families were below the poverty line in 2002, compared with 22.2% in 1960. And there are signs of a return of the nuclear family after a decline of marriage as an institution in the 1980s and 1990s. Professor McDonald, like Ms. Hymowitz, notes the dramatic decline of crime in America, citing FBI figures that show that the murder rate has dropped to 5.5 per 100,000 from 10.2 in 1980, or 50%. "Most people are safer, have more money to spend, and can expect to live a lot longer than in the past," he writes. "And the quality of life is improving, even for those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder." There is similar good news to be found in global trends. In the developing world, where great masses of people live a primitive existence, the best measure of progress is the availability of food. In a new book, titled, "You Have to Admit It's Getting Better," edited by Hoover Institution fellow Terry L. Anderson, the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg cites a decline in starvation. "In 1970, 35% of the people in developing countries were starving. In 1996, the figure was 18% and the United Nations expects that figure will have fallen to 12% by 2010." Professor Lomborg a few years ago set out to write a book predicting natural- resource scarcity and environmental decline. After exhaustive research, he did just the opposite, much to the dismay of "sky-is-falling" theorists, who promptly attacked him for his heresy. Writes he: "I found we are not running out of energy or natural resources. There will be more and more food per head of the world's population. In 1900, we lived for an average of 30 years; today, we live for 67 years. According to the United Nations, we reduced poverty more in the last 50 years than we did in the previous 500 years, and it has been reduced in almost every country." [. . . ] - Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson... you find the present tense and the past perfect. --Robert Orben (1927 ) American magician and comedy writer. - He distains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before his own. --Sir Thomas Overbury (1581?1613) English poet and essayist. _An Affectate Traveller_ [1614] & see: Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.... --W. S. Gilbert (18361911) English writer of comic and satirical verse. _The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu_ - Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. --Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 B.C.18 A.D.) Roman poet. Any comfortable American who is cynical of progress or the competent decency of modern civilization hasn't pondered how life was for our ancestors. Any day that cossacks haven't burned your home should start out a happy one, overflowing with optimism. --M.N. Plano, quoted by David Brin, keynote address delivered to the Libertarian Party National Convention in Indianapolis [5 July 2002]. - The world has gone mad today And good's bad today And black's white today And day's night today... --Cole Porter (18921964) American songwriter. _Anything Goes_ [1934] In olden days, a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking, But now, God knows, Anything goes. --Cole Porter (18921964) American songwriter. _Anything Goes_ [1934] - The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood. --Logan Pearsall Smith (18651946) American-born man of letters. People who are always praising the past And especially the times of faith as best Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages. --Stevie [Florence Margaret] Smith (19021971) English poet and novelist. "The Past" [1957] The good of ancient times let others state, I think it lucky I was born so late. --Sydney Smith (17711845) English clergyman and essayist, in 1802 cofounded "The Edinburgh Review." "Wit and Wisdom" Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavour. [Latin: Vetera semper in laude, presentia in fastidio.] --Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian. Our ancestors used to wear decent clothes, well- adapted to the shape of their bodies; they were skilled horsemen and swift runners, ready for all seemly undertakings. But in these days the old customs have almost wholly given way to new fads. Our wanton youth is sunk in effeminacy, and courtiers, fawning, seek the favors of women with every kind of lewdness. ... They sweep the dusty ground with the unnecessary trains of their robes and mantles; their long, wide sleeves cover their hands whatever they do; impeded by these frivolities they are almost incapable of walking quickly or doing any kind of useful work ... They curl their hair with hot irons and cover their heads with a fillet or a cap. --Orderic Vitalis (1075c. 1142) English chronicler and monk. In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 219. There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present. --Lillian Eichler Watson _Light From Many Lamps_ You can't go back home to your family To a young man's dream of fame and glory, To the country cottage away from strife and conflict, To the father you have lost, To the old forms and systems of things, Which seemed everlasting but are changing all the time. --Thomas Wolfe (19001938) American novelist. _You Can't Go Home Again_ [1940] - You can read it in the mornin' paper, Hear it on the radio, How crime is a'sweepin' the nation, This world is about to go. We need a nationwide revival To put the love of God in our soul: We need a whole lot more of Jesus, And a lot less rock 'n' roll. --Bluegrass Song from the 50s, sung by the New Lost City Ramblers --- THE GOOD OLD DAYS {from a "Washington Post" contest c. 1997} In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In the winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction. (Bill Flavin) In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated. (Jon Patrick Smith) In my day, we didn't have fancy high numbers. We had "nothing," "one," "twain" and "multitudes." (Elden Carnahan) In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you just had to hope you could outrun him. (Sarah M. Wolford) In my day, we didn't have days. There was only "time for work," "time for prayer" and "time for sleep." The sheriff would go around and tell everyone when to change. (Elden Carnahan) In my day, we didn't have fancy health-food restaurants. Every day we ate lots of easily recognizable animal parts, along with potatoes drenched in melted fat from those animals. And we're all as strong as AAGGKK-GAAK Urrgh. Thud. (Tom Witte) In my day, we didn't have no rocks. We had to go down to the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our heads. (Barry Blyveis) In my day, we didn't get that disembodied, slightly ticked-off voice saying 'Doors closing.' We got on the train, the doors closed, and if your hand was sticking out it scraped along the tunnel all the damn way to the Silver Spring station and it was a bloody stump at the end. (Russell Beland) In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms. (Diana Hugue) In the old days, nobody asked you to sign petitions. The sheriff just came to your house and told you you was part of a posse. (Barry Blyveis) . . see: "LOVE & MARRIAGE (OR NOT)" for related links Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends. --Richard Bach (1936 ) American writer. _Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah_ [1977], Ch.18 Goodbyes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say goodbye to; this hurts, you feel; this must not happen again. --Elizabeth Bowen (18991973) Irish-born British novelist. _The House in Paris_ [1936] Going away, I can generally bear the separation, but I don't like the leave-taking. --Samuel Butler (18351902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. All farewells should be sudden. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. _Sardanapalus_ [1821], act V I have made it a rule to quit those persons I loved, when doomed to separate, without announcing the precise hour of departure. --William Hickey (17491830) British lawyer, colonial administrator in India, and memoirist. You and I will meet again When we're least expecting it One day in some far off place I will recognize your face I won't say goodbye my friend For you and I will meet again --Tom Petty (1950 ) American folk/rock musician. _Into The Great Wide Open_, [1991] "You And I Will Meet Again" Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in life. --Jean Paul Richter (17631825) German novelist. ----- swan song [SWAHN-SONG], noun: 1. A beautiful legendary song said to be sung by a dying swan. 2. A final or farewell appearance, action, or pronouncement. end page | GAMBLING - GARDENS | GARFIELD - GENERATION GAP | GENEROSITY -GENTLEMEN | GEOGRAPHY - GERSHWIN | GHOSTS - GLASSES | GLOBALIZATION - GOALS | GOD & GOING HOME | GOLF | GOOD DEEDS - GOODBYES | GOODNESS - GOVERNMENT | GRACE - GRATITUDE | GRAVEYARDS - GROWING | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 1 (A-L) | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | GROWING UP - GULLIBLE | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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