How can someone be a good man?
How can he improve himself to become a stronger, wiser, kinder and more successful man?
That’s what I want to explore in today’s post. In it you’ll find 180 of the best, most insightful and inspiring good man quotes.
Timeless thoughts to help you live a better life and become the best version of yourself. Both for your own sake and success and for the people you love.
I hope you’ll find something truly helpful here.
And if you want even more positive and uplifting motivation then check out this post with quotes that hit hard and this one filled with words of encouragement for men.
Inspirational Good Man Quotes
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
– Samuel Johnson
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather become a man of value.”
– Albert Einstein
“There is nothing wrong with being afraid – but there is nothing more wrong than allowing that to be your master.”
– Bobby Darin
“A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job.”
– John Wayne
“Being a ‘good man’ is something you do, not something you are.”
– Luvvie Ajayi
“If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, ‘I awake to do the work of a man.’”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who have overcome it.”
– Christian Nestell Bovee
“A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.”
– Sallust
“The first step to be a good man is this: You must deeply feel the burden of the stones some else is carrying.”
– Mehmet Murat Ildan
“If a man’s mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.”
– Buddha
“Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable.”
– Seneca the Younger
“You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman.”
– John Wayne
“It takes a great man to be a good listener.”
– Calvin Coolidge
“The heart of a good man is the sanctuary of God in this world.”
– Suzanne Curchod
“Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your powers you cannot be successful or happy.”
– Norman Vincent Peale
“The way of a superior man is three-fold: virtuous, he is free from anxieties; wise, he is free from perplexities; bold, he is free from fear.”
– Confucius
“To be a man requires that you accept everything life has to give you, beginning with your name.”
– Burl Ives
“Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.”
– Chuck Norris
“A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men are to their friends.”
– Joseph Hall
“You spend time with your family? Good. Because a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
– Don Vito Corleone (from the movie the Godfather)
“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.”
– Thomas Paine
“The man who is deserving the name is the one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than for himself.”
– Walter Scott
Motivational Good Man Quotes
“Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.”
– Benjamin Disraeli
“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.”
– John F. Kennedy
“A man may conquer a million men in battle but one who conquers himself is, indeed, the greatest of conquerors.”
– Buddha
“You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions.”
– Robert Kiyosaki
“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.”
– Dale Carnegie
“Your life will become better by making other lives better.”
– Will Smith
“A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.”
– Robert Green Ingersoll
“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
– Pablo Picasso
“A young man without ambition is an old man waiting to be.”
– Steven Brust
“It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.”
– Logan Pearsall Smith
“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
– A.A. Milne
“Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
– Bruce Lee
Wise Good Man Quotes
“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.”
– James Froude
“A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men are to their friends.”
– Joseph Hall
“As a general rule, it pays to be confident, helpful and nice.”
– Colin Wright
“Good men who exercise power are really the most fascinating of all people.”
– John Keegan
“The good man is the friend of all living things.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic: you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner.”
– Jerry Seinfeld
“Don’t hide your scars, they make you who you are.”
– Frank Sinatra
“Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.”
– George Meredith
“One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The life of a good man is at the same time the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice.”
– Samuel Smiles
“A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under the sun.”
– Samuel Richardson
“Manhood is the defeat of childhood narcissism.”
– David Gilmore
“Though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.”
– Saint Augustine
“My idea of the modern stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“A man may conquer a million men in battle but one who conquers himself is, indeed, the greatest of conquerors.”
– Buddha
“You will earn the respect of all men if you begin by earning the respect of yourself.”
– Musonius Rufus
Good Man Quotes to Give You New Insights
“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”
– Søren Kierkegaard
“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.”
– Oscar Wilde
“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
– Simone de Beauvoir
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be a value.”
– Albert Einstein
“The man who has no imaginations has no wings.”
– Muhammad Ali
“You don’t succeed by being perfect. You succeed by doing good work, consistently.”
– Thibaut
“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it himself.”
– Galileo Galilei
“In the face of inhumanity, a good man reacts, but a great one acts.
– James Rollins
“Every day is a new life to the wise man.”
– Dale Carnegie
“A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”
– Buddha
“A person can achieve everything by being simple and humble.”
– The Vedas
“The men who act without thinking, and the men who both think and act, are the ones who mould the world. The man who thinks and does not act never moulds the world. He may think that he does — but that, too, is only a thought, the thought of a deedless, actionless thinker.”
– Jack London
“We all have to fight through our mistakes to become a better man.”
– Emmanuel Adebayor
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“You have to have a bunch of dimensions of yourself. You have to be able to adapt in this world. You can’t be a nice guy living in a world of savages.”
– Mike Tyson
Good Man Quotes to Help You Become Even Better
“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”
– Og Mandino
“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”
– Brandon Sanderson
“A great man is always willing to be little.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.”
– George Savile
“First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.”
– Thomas Alcott
“Experience really does make you better, man.”
– Alan Vega
“To have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered.”
– Oscar Wilde
“If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he’s dead, then maybe he was a great man.”
– James Dean
“Being a male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of choice.”
– Edwin Louis Cole
“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.”
– Henri Bergson
“Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”
– George Washington
“Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man — a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man — when you’re doing it for, or with, other people.”
– A.A. Gill
“To be disciplined or non-disciplined is a choice you make every minute in every hour of your life.”
– Russell Gerald Johnston
“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
– Socrates
“Nice guys may appear to finish last, but usually they are running a different race.”
– Ken Blanchard
“We need men who can dream of things that never were.”
– John F. Kennedy
“I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.”
– Ellen Goodman
“Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome it.”
– Christian Nestell Bovee
“I’m a good man, and I’m gonna become a better man.”
– Chance the Rapper
“He who Serves his fellows is, of all his fellows, greatest.”
– E. Urner Goodman
Good Man Quotes for Appreciating Him
“I think a gentleman is someone who holds the comfort of other people above their own. The instinct to do that is inside every good man, I believe. The rules about opening doors and buying dinner and all of that other ‘gentleman’ stuff is a chess game, especially these days.”
– Anna Kendrick
“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”
– Andrew Jackson
“Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.”
– Franz Schubert
“A man must at times be hard as nails: willing to face up to the truth about himself…But he must also be tender. No weapon will breach the armor of a woman’s resentment like tenderness.”
– Elisabeth Elliot
“A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“It makes a big difference when men respect women. There are a lot of men who don’t, so that’s the main quality that would make a good man a great man.”
– Stephanie Sigman
“One good man, one good man, it ain’t much – it’s only everything.”
– Deborah Kerr
“For a man, there’s a big responsibility that comes with having a boy because men are made by their fathers. If you’ve got a good productive man around, it’s better. I have such a close relationship with my dad and that responsibility to produce a good man is something I think about.”
– Rafe Spall
“My dad is such a good man. You know how when you are a child you think your dad is invincible? Well, I still think that – he is so wise and everything I do I ask my dad’s advice about first.”
– Leona Lewis
“A real man can’t stand seeing his woman hurt. He’s careful with his decisions and actions, so he never has to be responsible for her pain.”
– Unknown
“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.”
– William Butler Yeats
“It is his nature, not his standing, that makes the good man.”
– Publilius Syrus
“A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.”
– Saul Bellow
“It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.”
– Plutarch
“The mark of a real man is a man who can allow himself to fall deeply in love with a woman.”
– C. JoyBell C.
Positive Good Man Quotes
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moment of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Real men don’t dance to other people’s tune, instead, they play for others to dance.”
– Michael Bassey Johnson
“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”
– William James
“It is not the situation which makes the man, but the man who makes the situation.”
– Frederick William Robertson
“It takes a mighty good man to be better than no man at all.”
– Dixie Carter
“A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.”
– Marilyn Monroe
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
“Consider yourself lucky for having met him, for he’s the kind of man who’ll prove you right.”
– Nicholas Sparks
“A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”
– Bob Marley
“A good man and a wise man may at times be angry with the world, at times grieved for it; but be sure no man was ever discontented with the world who did his duty in it.”
– Robert Southey
“He was such a good man that people hated to see him coming.”
– Mark Twain
“Life’s not about how hard of a hit you can give. It’s about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.”
– Sylvester Stallone (in the movie Rocky)
Good Man Quotes to Unlock Your Full Potential
“Being a good man is not an exam or a qualification, it changes, and it incorporates being a good friend, a good father, a good employee, a good boss, a good neighbor, and a good citizen.”
– A.A. Gill
“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.”
– Chuck Norris
“There is nothing noble being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“He who stops being better stops being good.”
– Oliver Cromwell
“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.”
– Tommy Lasorda
“A man who is not a good friend to himself cannot be so to anyone else.”
– John Lubbock
“First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.”
– Thomas Alcott
“It cannot, indeed, be denied, that a good man is more worthy of love than a bad one.”
– Martin Luther
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”
– David Brinkley
“My future’s about trying to be a better man.”
– Terrence Howard
“Progress is made in solitude; profit is made in public.”
– Sven Schnieders
“Strength, courage, mastery, and honor are the alpha virtues of men all over the world.”
– Jack Donovan
“You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.”
– Conor McGregor
“A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”
– Confucius
“Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.”
– Aldous Huxley
Good Man Quotes to Strengthen Your Character
“A gentleman will open doors, pull out chairs, and carry things. Not because she’s helpless or unable, but because he wants to show her that she is valuable and worthy of respect.”
– Charles J. Orlando
“A good man will want you to shine. He wants you to be your amazing self. A good man loves to show off his happy, intelligent, amazing, powerful woman.”
– Anastasia Netri
“You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.”
– Paul McCartney
“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.”
– Bruce Lee
“Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.”
– Patrick Henry
“Great men do not play stage tricks with the doctrines of life and death: only little men do that.”
– John Ruskin
“The good man does not grieve that other people do not recognize his merits. His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognize theirs.”
– Confucius
“The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.”
– John Dewey
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
– John Wooden
“If you’re open, you’re vulnerable – but vulnerable to being changed and to being a better man.”
– Rege-Jean Page
“A good man will never harm or oppress another. A good man will share his last morsel of food with others in need, and die of hunger when he no longer has any food – instead of cheat or steal from others to survive. Selflessness. Humility. Truthfulness. These are the three marks of an honorable man.”
– Suzy Kassem
“The true index of a man’s character is the health of his wife.”
– Cyril Connolly
“We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.”
– William James
“A good man will find that there is goodness in the world; an honest man will find that there is honesty in the world; and a man of principle will find principle and integrity in the hearts of others.”
– Albert Pike
“If you perform the sacrifice of doing your duty, you do not have to do anything else. Devoted to duty, man attains perfection.”
– Bhagavad Gita
“The stronger a man is, the more gentle he can afford to be.”
– Elbert Hubbard
Other Good Man Quotes and Sayings
“You should think in such a way that everybody could look into your soul and see what is transpiring there.”
– Seneca
“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.”
– Thomas Carlyle
“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“If you are afraid of the sunlight, you ain’t a good man!”
– Mehmet Murat Ildan
“A man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden – swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
“A real man loves his wife, and places his family as the most important thing in life. Nothing has brought me more peace and content in life than simply being a good husband and father.”
– Frank Abagnale
“Forget about what other men are doing. Focus all your might on being better than your former self.”
– Ella Brown
“Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He’s the chap who makes it possible for civilized folk to despise war.”
– Allan Massie
“A good man’s prayers will from the deepest dungeon climb heaven’s height, and bring a blessing down.”
– Joanna Baillie
“If a good man can’t sleep after hurting people, then he should learn much more to be a leader.”
– Toba Beta
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
– Albert Ellis
“Work hard, be honest, help people, never give up, love your fellow man and woman, give back to society, and don’t ever discriminate.”
– Jesse White
Short Good Man Quotes
“Every man of courage is a man of his word.”
– Pierre Corneille
“I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.”
– John Ruskin
“What you aim at determines what you see.”
– Jordan Peterson
“Just because you are a nice guy, doesn’t mean you are a good man.”
– Zyanya Torres
“Young man, the secret of my success is that at early age I discovered that I was not God.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Let the quality man you’ve been created to be out; the world incomplete without him.”
– Eric M. Watterson
“The real power of a man is in the size of the smile of the woman sitting next to him.”
– Unknown
“A wise man becomes free when he is ready to die at any moment.”
– Diogenes
“Well being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”
– Citium Zeno
“Only a good man will stand up for what is right even when it’s not convenient or easy.”
– Rip Miller
“It takes a strong man to accept somebody else’s children and step up to the plate another man left on the table.”
– Ray Johnson
“A man may fail many times but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”
– John Burroughs
“Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”
– Michelangelo
“All fortune belongs to him who has a contented mind.”
– The Panchatantra
“Men’s best successes come after their disappointments.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
– Confucious
“If you want to save the world, save your little corner of the world.”
– Naval Ravikant
If you liked these good man quotes then share them with a friend, family member or co-worker that may find them helpful and inspiring via social media or email.
Want even more motivation to help you live your best life? Check out this post with focus on yourself quotes, this one with courage quotes plus this one that’s all about keep pushing quotes.