Good Works Quotes

“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”
― Mother Teresa

“Good works is giving to the poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One who matters.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!”
― John Wesley

“...it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

[Letter to William Short, 13 April 1820]”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“And don't waste time worshipping Harmony. Doing goodwasthe worship.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law

“If you are hard to work with, you won’t be able to build good and profitable business relationships. You might lose many good business partners, vendors, and even employees because they will find it tough to work with you.”
― Pooja Agnihotri, 17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail:Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure

“The moment we begin to feel satisfied that we are making some progress along the road of sanctification, it is all the more necessary to repent and confess that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Yet the Christian life is not one of gloom, but of ever increasing joy in the Lord. God alone knows our good works; all we know is His good work.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“A man who does good works without Jesus Christ is like a man who takes his hard earned money to the bank, drops it at the counter and walks away without a bank account.”
― Paul Bamikole

“Our identity is in Christ, not in our work, our accomplishments or our own good works. Our provision is from God alone, not our jobs or our money. Our authority is in Christ alone, not our own power or strength, apart from Jesus Christ, we do not have any authority, identity or provision. He is our all and our everything.”
― Paddick Van Zyl

“Good works are not the cause of our salvation; good works are the evidence of our salvation. Faith in Christ always results in good works. Obedience to God is the mark of true saving faith.”
― Ibrahim Emile

“God is not present, even if we invoke him, where the afflicted are merely regarded as an occasion for doing good. They may even be loved on this account, but then they are in their natural role, the role of matter and of things. We have to bring to them in their inert, anonymous condition a personal love....In true love it is not we who love the afflicted in God; it is God in us who loves them.”
― Simone Weil, Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us

“And do you think," said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, "That an unvisited grave, withered tree, a faded flower or two, tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, at this instant, in whose good action and good thoughts these very Graves--neglected as they look to us-- are chief instruments."....
"There is nothing," cried her friend, "no, no thing innocent or good, that dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here Forgotten! Oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!”
― Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

“We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family; but we shall not do it in martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation, of feeling that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind.

We shall do it just for one thing, that our hands make Christ's hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ's patience back to the world.”
― Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

“Certainly human culture may have achieved great progress in the course of history. Suffering and unhappiness in the human world, however, do not seem to have decreased. The present situation of our world is so full of poverty, distrust, diseases, strife, that there seems to be no end. Hundreds and thousands of great men admired as saints and sages have appeared in the world in the past, and they have devoted their lives for the betterment of the world. Human suffering and unhappiness, however, do not seem to have decreased or ended. Over and over again they repeatedly, thanklessly endeavoured to fill up the well with snow. The true life of Zen is found here, when we all become true Great Fools and calmly and nonchalantly keep on doing our best, realizing well that our efforts will never be rewarded.”
― Zenkei Shibayama, A Flower Does Not Talk: Zen Essays

“We will be remembered only by the good work we leave behind even if our very own never remember us after we are gone.”
― Amit Abraham

“A man was created for good works.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Good works are not the cause of our salvation; good works are evidence of our salvation. Faith in Christ always results in good works. Obedience to God is the mark of true saving faith.”
― Ibrahim E. Sakkab

“...she would convince herself that she wasn’t destined for Hell because in all other ways she led a good life. An exemplary life. And though she understood that works alone could not buy one’s salvation, the fact that she wanted so desperately to behave well was a favorable indication.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Hour of the Witch

“People will replace you and will forget your good works but the Lord will always remember, He will always do something not for you to be replaced but to be in use for His glory because He made you wonderfully and marvelously.”
― Jennifer Aquillo

“On Him, on the Stone, is faith based, and on faith is reared up all the structure. For the habitation of the house is required pure fasting, and it is made firm by faith. There is also needed for it pure prayer, and through faith is it accepted. Necessary for it too is love, and with faithis it compounded. Furthermore alms are needed, and through faith are they given. He demands also meekness, and by faith is it adorned. He chooses too virginity, and by faith is it loved. He joins with himself holiness, and in faith is it planted. He cares also for wisdom, and through faith is it acquired. He desires also hospitality, and by faith does it abound. Requisite for Him also is simplicity, and with faith is it commingled. He demands patience also, and by faith is it perfected. He has respect also to long-suffering, and through faith is it acquired. He loves mourning also, and through faith is it manifested. He seeks also for purity, and by faith is it preserved. All these things does the faith demand that is based on the rock of the true Stone, that is Christ. These works are required for Christ the King, Who dwells in men that are built up in these works.”
― Aphraates the Persian Sage, Aphrahat demonstrations

“Luther maintained that good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works.”
― Kurt E. Marquart, The Saving Truth: Doctrine for Laypeople: Volume I

“Be zealous for good works.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The Christian is bound to perform many good works, but before all else what he ought to do is to pray, for without prayer no other good work whatever can be accomplished. Without prayer he cannot find the way to the Lord, he cannot understand the truth, he cannot crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts, his heart cannot be enlightened with the light of Christ, he cannot be savingly united to God. None of those things can be effected unless they are preceded by constant prayer.”
― R.M. French, The Way of a Pilgrim

“Miss Moorthy was aware that her interested concern in everybody’s well-being might be seen by the uncharitable as busybodyness. To Miss Moorthy it was simply a matter of setting things right starting from where she was. She could not single-handedly save the Amazonian rainforests but she could, and did, stop students from carving their names on trees or trampling on plants. It was all the same thing on a different scale, wasn’t it?”
― Ovidia Yu, Miss Moorthy Investigates

“Godly leads to good works.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The presence of the holy ghost gives power for good works.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Teaching through works rather than speech, the deed before the word, is better and more thorough.”
― Abelard, The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise

“Our faith and works are merely reflections of the salvation we have received, not a contributing factor to it.”
― Sinclair B. Ferguson, Church History 101: The Highlights of Twenty Centuries

“Offer to God the sacrifice of never gathering any fruit. If He will that throughout your whole life you should feel a repugnance to suffering and humiliation—if He permit that all the flowers of your desires and of your good will should fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not worry. At the hour of death, in the twinkling of an eye, He will cause fair fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul.”
― Thérèse de Lisieux, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

“As a spirit, a conscious person endowed with free will, every man has, through faith and grace, a unique 'existential' relation to God, and few since St. Augustine have described this relation more profoundly than Kierkegaard. But every man has a second relation to God which is neither unique nor existential: as a creature composed of matter, as a biological organism, is related by necessity to the God who created that universe and saw that it was good, for the laws of nature to which, whether he likes it or not, he must conform are of divine origin.
And it is with this body, with faith or without it, that all good works are done.

(W.H. Auden)
(The Poet's Prose)”
― Alan Jacobs, Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant