History Quotes / GoodIsNotNice

->''"Better is open rebuke than hidden love. [[EtTuBrute Wounds from a friend]] can be trusted, [[BitchInSheepsClothing but an enemy multiplies kisses]]."''

->'''Jon''': So, what is he just like- kinda like, is he aligned good but he's still a dick like [[Franchise/{{StarFox}} Falco]] or something?

-->-- '''Edward Bunnigus''', ''WebComic/ScholckMercenary''

-->-- '''John Rowland''', ''Literature/TheDarkIsRising''

-->''"Evil is cruel, and so men think it follows that Good is kind. This is a mistake, my son. Though fire is warm and in the dark of night we huddle around it, it also ''burns.''"''

->''"We're the Light Ones, not the Saint ones."''

-- -- ''Literature/BelisariusSeries''

-->-- ''BadassOfTheWeek'' -- '''[[Film/{{Alien}} Ellen Ripley]]'''

-->-- '''Death''', ''TheBookThief''

-->-- '''JohnMilton''', ''Literature/ParadiseLost''

->[[CatchPhrase Kagome!]] [=InuYasha=] [[WouldHurtAChild hit me!]]

->[[CatchPhrase Waaaaah!]] [[JerkassWoobie Kyo]] [[KickTheDog hit me!]]

->You may be a hero, Jack Knight, but that still doesn't make you a nice person.

-->--''Film/TheJudge''

->'''Lawrence Garfield:''' Since when do you have to be nice to be right?
-->--''Film/OtherPeoplesMoney''

->Abashed, [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] stood, and felt how awful goodness is.
-->--'''JohnMilton''', ''Literature/ParadiseLost''

->Better is open rebuke than hidden love. [[EtTuBrute Wounds from a friend]] can be trusted, [[BitchInSheepsClothing but an enemy multiplies kisses]].

->"Is he -- quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."\\

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you."

->I am a Count, not a Saint.

-->--''Literature/{{Worm}}''

->Please, trust me. I most definitely ''can'' be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

->If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

->People like you always mistake compassion for weakness. [[KnightInShiningArmor Michael and Sanya]] aren't weak. Fortunately for you, they are good men. [[ShutUpHannibal Unfortunately for you,]] ''[[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique I'm not.]]''

->We're the Light Ones, not the Saint ones.

->"That sounds like the definition of loyalty to me," said the king. "Don't mistake friendliness with loyalty, Ven. Friendly and loyal are two different things. There are a lot of people who are one and not the other. From what you told me a few days ago, your own mother doesn't sound like a very friendly person - but she is a good one, yes?"\\

"Then judge Ida by whether she is there for you in times of need, as she seems to be, not by whether she is pleasant to you. In the end, you can get many people to be pleasant to you pretty easily. A true friend, someone who will risk her life and her freedom for you, as your other friends would, is very hard to come by."

--> -- ''Literature/BelisariusSeries''

->Why is it that people like you always think you're more ruthless than [[OfficerAndAGentleman people like me]]?
--> -- '''Commodore Sir Aivars Terekhov''', ''[[Literature/HonorHarrington Shadow of Freedom]]''

->Those men who know anything about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun. At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else. You are like fanatics. Your masters, at any rate. At the center of the Light there is a cold white flame, just as at the center of the Dark there is a great black pit bottomless as the Universe.

->And then there are those who operate on the fringes of society. Unburdened by the confines of morality and conscience. A ruthless breed of monsters whose deadliest weapon is the ability to [[DevilInPlainSight hide in plain sight.]] If the people I've come to bring justice to cannot be bound by the quest of absolution, then neither will I.

->'Sweet,' maybe. 'Passionate,' I suppose. But don't ever mistake that for "nice."

->I may be on the side of the angels... But don't think for ''one second'' that I ''am'' one of them.
-->-- '''Franchise/SherlockHolmes''', ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', "[[Recap/SherlockS02E03TheReichenbachFall The Reichenbach Fall]]"

'''Woman in alley:''' ''(hotly)'' I was just trying to get home. ''(leaves)''\\

-->-- ''Series/{{Angel}}'', "Soul Purpose"

->This money comes from the life savings of those Narns who escaped the occupation. It is a limited resource purchased with blood. If it should be squandered or stolen, rest assured that while your body may one day be found, it could never be identified from what's left.
-->--'''G'kar''', ''Series/BabylonFive'' ("Comes the Inquisitor")

->My job isn't to make friends, it's to stop bad things from happening.
-->-- '''Mark Fallon''', ''Series/{{Castle}}'', "Countdown"

->''(Mal has just defeated [[AristocratsAreEvil Atherton Wing]] in a duel and stands over him)''

->''(Mal stabs Wing, [[OnlyAFleshWound lightly]])''

->''(stabs him again)''

-->-- ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', "Shindig"

->''Whaddya mean, "I ain't kind"?\\
Just not ''your'' kind''
-->--"Peace Sells", '''{{Music/MEGADETH}}'''

->''A local boy kicked me in the butt last week\\

'Cause I'll be laughing my head off when he's burning in Hell''
-->--"Amish Paradise", '''Music/WeirdAlYankovic'''

->Good is not nice, polite, well-mannered, self-righteous, or naive, though good characters may be some of these things.

->We're the [[GodEmperor Emperor's]] [[SuperSoldier Angels of Death]], [[NaiveNewcomer Thaddeus]], not His Angels of Mercy.

->Get lost. I'm not a babysitter.

->You're really not my type, man. Sorry, but I'm gonna have to pass.

->It's alright, I can handle this myself. You're just gonna take pictures again, aren't you...

->Freudia, do not stand in my way.

->After a small problem with some raiders, who would continue for years to plague not only myself, but the Tribe, I found myself in Junktown. It was here that I learned the most important rule of all: doing a good thing sometimes means being a very bad person.
-->--The [[PlayerCharacter Vault Dweller's]] memoirs, from the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' [[AllThereInTheManual manual]].

->Our manners are poor, but if we're rough around the edges it's because these are supposed to be ''cutting'' edges, and they see a lot of use.
-->--'''Edward Bunnigus''', ''WebComic/ScholckMercenary''

->It was not by gentle sweetness and womanly self-abnegation that she had brought order out of chaos in the Scutari Hospitals, that, from her own resources, she had clothed the British Army, that she had spread her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers of the official world; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labour, by the fixed determination of an indomitable will. Beneath her cool and calm demeanour lurked fierce and passionate fires. As she passed through the wards in her plain dress, so quiet, so unassuming, she struck the casual observer simply as the pattern of a perfect lady; but the keener eye perceived something more than that - the serenity of high deliberation in the scope of the capacious brow, the sign of power in the dominating curve of the thin nose, and the traces of a harsh and dangerous temper — something peevish, something mocking, and yet something precise — in the small and delicate mouth.

->So Ripley heads out there with the Marines to bust some fucking football-shaped heads and the shit hits the fan pretty much immediately...Along the way she takes the time out to stare the Alien Queen dead in the face before turning the blowtorch on an entire room full of her crazy alien eggs. Ripley doesn't give a shit that [[CollapsingLair the entire planet's going to be turned to dust in like five minutes]] --- she's the kind of badass who's not going to pass up any opportunity to be a total bitch.
-->--'''''BadassOfTheWeek''''' -- [[Film/{{Alien}} Ellen Ripley]]

-->--Chris Sims and David Uzumeri [[http://comicsalliance.com/blade-movie-review-comicsalliance/ on]] ''{{Film/Blade}}''

->Kirk is allowed to be flawed as a character, in a way that Roddenberry never allowed with the cast of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'', and I’d argue that Kirk comes across much better for it. This characterisation would really pay off until ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan The Wrath of Khan]]'', but it does make it clear that Kirk is more than just a charming rogue. He’s also arrogant and self-interested, characteristics hinted at on the show but never fully developed.
-->--'''Darren Mooney''' [[http://them0vieblog.com/2013/08/01/non-review-review-star-trek-the-motion-picture/ on]] ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture''

->There is another of those excellent discussion amongst the crew that ''[=DS9=]'' excels at and its probably one of the best because it is about something as real as massacring a group of defenceless soldiers. O’Brien [[LetsFightLikeGentlemen thinks it is cowardly]], Garak thinks that humans [[CombatPragmatist impose far too many rules on combat]] that make victory a lot harder than it needs to be, and Sisko steps in with the very convincing statement that everybody needs to leave their morals at the door because when it comes to a choice between us and them there ''is'' no choice. That’s what makes him such a good leader – it's not a decision that [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]] or [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Janeway]] could make without soul searching for five years afterwards...It's uncomfortable viewing but absolutely rivets you to the screen.
-->--'''[[http://www.docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/deep-space-nine-season-six.html Joe Ford]]''' on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', "Rocks and Shoals"

->Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.

->Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
-->--'''UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'''

->What usually sets me off is injustice. In defense of those I admire, I’m always ready — eager? — to do battle. Although I have the killer instinct altogether too well developed, I do try to deploy it in good causes. This pugnacity is inherited from my mother’s family, the Gores, an Anglo-Irish clan of eloquent, bad-tempered politicians, lawyers and preachers.
-->--'''Creator/GoreVidal'''

'''Woman in alley:''' ''(offended)'' I was just trying to get home.\\

->''The Motion Picture'' also contains a few interesting character beats for both Kirk and Spock. In particular, the script acknowledges that Kirk is something of a flawed leader, and [[TookALevelInJerkass a bit of a jerk]]. He arrives on the ''Enterprise'' to relieve Decker of command, but doesn’t notify him beforehand. Decker is understandably upset, and even [=McCoy=] is sharp enough to see that Kirk [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste is taking advantage of the situation.]] ''“You rammed getting this command down Starfleet’s throat. You’ve used this emergency to get ''Enterprise'' back.”''\\\
Several times over the course of ''The Motion Picture'', Kirk is proven to be incorrect. Explaining why he has been chosen to relieve Decker of command, Kirk points out, ''“My experience, five years out there dealing with unknowns like this, my familiarity with the ''Enterprise'', this crew.”'' Decker rather astutely counters, ''“Admiral, this is an almost totally new ''Enterprise''. You don’t know her a tenth as well as I do.”'' His criticisms are borne out when Kirk [[KnowNothingKnowItAll can’t even find the appropriate turboshaft]]...Kirk is allowed to be flawed as a character, in a way that Roddenberry never allowed with the cast of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'', and I’d argue that Kirk comes across much better for it. This characterisation would really pay off until ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan The Wrath of Khan]]'', but it does make it clear that Kirk is more than just a charming rogue. He’s also arrogant and self-interested, characteristics hinted at on the show but never fully developed.

->There is another of those excellent discussion amongst the crew that ''[=DS9=]'' excels at and its probably one of the best because it is about something as real as [[CannonFodder massacring a group of defenceless soldiers]]. O’Brien [[LetsFightLikeGentlemen thinks it is cowardly]], Garak thinks that humans [[CombatPragmatist impose far too many rules on combat]] that make victory a lot harder than it needs to be, and Sisko steps in with the very convincing statement that everybody needs to leave their morals at the door because when it comes to a choice between us and them there ''is'' no choice. That’s what makes him such a good leader – it's not a decision that [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]] or [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Janeway]] could make without [[ContemplateOurNavels soul searching for five years afterwards]], but Sisko sees this situation for what it is and pushes the moral agony to one side for the sake of his men. He tries to talk to the Jem H’adar leader and find another option, but when he realises that these guys will commit suicide to maintain their integrity he still orders his crew to fire on these lambs to the slaughter. It's uncomfortable viewing but absolutely rivets you to the screen.

->"This money comes from the life savings of those Narns who escaped the occupation. It is a limited resource purchased with blood. If it should be squandered or stolen, rest assured that while your body may one day be found, it could never be identified from what's left.
-->--'''G'kar''', ''Series/BabylinFive'' ("Comes the Inquisitor")

->We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon. But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.
-->--'''UsefulNotes/MaoZedong''', [[https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm "Combat Liberalism"]]

-->-- '''Sgt. Avitus''', ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar 2''

->'''Hauser:''' You, your friends, you're conflicted, you're confused. [[GoodIsImpotent And that's why you're gonna lose.]] Because we possess the strongest thing in the world: conviction.\\
'''Angel:''' There ''is'' one thing stronger than conviction. One thing. Mercy. ''(kicks Hauser's shotgun, [[BoomHeadshot making him blow his own head off]])''\\
'''Goon:''' What happened to mercy?!\\
'''Angel:''' You just saw the last of it.
-->--''{{Series/Angel}}'', "Conviction"

->'Sweet,' maybe. 'Passionate,' I suppose. But don't ever mistake that for 'nice.'"

->Why is it that [[CompleteMonster people like you]] always think you're more ruthless than [[OfficerAndAGentleman people like me]]?

-->--'''{{Music/MEGADETH}}''', "Peace Sells"

'''Hank Palmer:''' Right now? I'm a summer breeze. Once I subpoena you, get you on the stand and extract the truth from your ass like tree sap THEN you'll realize in THAT moment, correct, I'm not a pleasant person.

'''[[BadassLongcoat Spike]]:''' Well, what did you expect? Out alone in this neighborhood -- I've got half a mind to kill you myself, you half-wit.\\

'''Woman in alley:''' ''[annoyed]'' I was just trying to get home.\\