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About this quote

What does it mean?
Armenag Saroyan was a good man, so good that people said he was too good for this world.
In plain terms
He was exceptionally good, perhaps out of place.
What can you take from it?
Great virtue can feel out of sync with society.

Where it applies

  • social activism
  • moral leadership

Putting it to work

  • model ethical behavior
  • support virtuous people

Questions to consider

  • Why are virtuous people sometimes marginalized?
  • How can society value goodness?

Another view

Being 'too good' can attract criticism.

More from William Saroyan

  1. I believed from the beginning of remembered experience that I was somebody with an incalculable potential for enlargement, somebody who both knew and could fin…

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  2. I liked Charentz straight off, but more important than this was the feeling that I had that he was a truly great man. Human greatness is a rather difficult thi…

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  3. In those days, there was something more to the world than there is now. Well, my kids were little, let's put it that way, and of course if you like your kids, …

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