Be good and you will be lonesome

Be good and you will be lonesome

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would read more

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

What good I see humbly I seek to do,
And live obedient to the law, in trust
read more

What good I see humbly I seek to do,
And live obedient to the law, in trust
That what will come, and must come, shall come well.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

A good man, through obscurest aspirations
Has still an instinct of the one true way.
[Ger., Ein read more

A good man, through obscurest aspirations
Has still an instinct of the one true way.
[Ger., Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunkeln Drange,
Ist sich des rechten Weges sohl bewusst.]

There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as
before;
The evil is null, is read more

There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as
before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

The good he scorned
Stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,
Not to return; or if it read more

The good he scorned
Stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,
Not to return; or if it did, in visits
Like those of angels, short and far between.

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an
evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable read more

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an
evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil
that they set out to destroy.