Most Good, Least Harm Quotes

“Someday, I hope that we will all be patriots of our planet and not just of our respective nations.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“I am grateful to realize that my desires do not entitle me to add to another's suffering.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“All it takes for generosity to flow is awareness. By actively pursuing awareness and knowledge, we can make choices that cause less harm and greater good to others in the global community of our shared earth.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“In order to align your life choices with your values, you will need to inquire about the effects of your actions (and inactions) on yourself and others. Although we are always stumbling upon new knowledge that shifts our choices and life direction, bringing conscious inquiry to life means that we continually ask questions that lead us to the information we need to make thoughtful decisions. Asking questions is liberating because we develop great understanding and discover more choices with our new knowledge.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“In order to make most good, least harm choices, and create a humane and sustainable world, we are going to have to become adept at making connections. Single-issue thinking and taking sides when issues are presented to us in simplistic terms will have to give way to far more nuanced research, consideration, and decision making.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“Live your epitaph”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“Each day we wake up and make myriad choices that affect others. We clothe ourselves with shirts, pants, and shoes that may have been sewn together by women working in factories fourteen-plus hours a day for a nonliving wage; we buy products manufactured in ways the destroy forests, pollute waterways, and poison the air; we wash our hair with shampoos that may have been squeezed into the eyes of conscious rabbits or force-fed to them in quantities that kill; and on and on. As Derrick Jensen has written in his book "The Culture of Make Believe", "It is possible to destroy a culture without being aware of its existence. It is possible to commit genocide or ecocide from the comfort of one's living room”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“Mogo living brings about true freedom. When you have the inner conviction to do the most good and the least harm, you are free to say no to media, social, and peer pressures. You are free from a nagging sense that your life does not have value or meaning. You are free to imagine and then create a truly successful (in the deepest meaning on the word) life. You are free to be at peace with yourself and all those whom your life touches.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“…The salvation of the human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human modesty, and in human responsibility. Vaclav Havel”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“It just seems our species is happier when we are good. Goodness is not guaranteed. A life of principle requires practice…. from Unless, a novel by Carol Shields”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“There is a story about a Cherokee grandfather who is teaching his grandson about life. He says to his grandson, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil; he is anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and superiority. The other is good; he is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, generosity, and compassion. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“There is a story about a Cherokee grandfather who is teaching his grandson about life. He says to his grandson, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil; he is anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and superiority. The other is good; he is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, generosity, and compassion. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thinks about this for a minute and then asks his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replies, “The one we feed.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life

“If our hearts are open to seeing suffering, they can easily break under the weight of so much pain in our world. Our anger may threaten to consume us and turn us into people who hate, even though it was our love that broke our hearts open to begin with.”
― Zoe Weil, Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life