quotations about evil
All I ask of Fate is that the people she hurls into my life, whether they are evil or good, or morally bipolar, should be amusing to one degree or another.... The problem is finding smile-inducing evil people, because the evil are the most humorless, though in the movies they frequently get some of the best lines.
DEAN KOONTZ
Brother Odd
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
W. H. AUDEN
"September 1, 1939"
Apathy and evil. The two work hand in hand. They are the same, really.... Evil wills it. Apathy allows it. Evil hates the innocent and the defenseless most of all. Apathy doesn't care as long as it's not personally inconvenienced.
JAKE THOENE
Shaiton's Fire
How many things are now called the worst evil, which are only twelve feet wide and three months long! But some day greater dragons will come into the world.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Very few people see their own actions as truly evil.... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Blue Moon
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
BALTASAR GRACIAN
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
No man is compelled to evil; his consent only makes it his.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
I desire to go through life knowing as little of evil in it as possible. To this end, I sometimes avoid looking too closely into the nature of things, studying them only so far as they seem to be good, and abandoning interest in them as soon as their darker feature begin to appear. The good only deserves a hearty interest.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
All men begin as good men. What they are taught as children, what is expected of them as young men, is either the armor about that goodness or the flaw that allows evil in.
DAVID WEBER
Off Armageddon Reef
Is the Deity able to prevent evil, but not willing, where is his benevolence; is he willing, but not able, where is his power; is he both able and willing, whence then is evil?
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Those who return evil for good should not expect the kindness of others to last long.
AESOP
"The Countryman and the Snake", Aesop's Fables
Fairly examined, truly understood,
No man is wholly bad, nor wholly good.
THEOGNIS OF MEGARA
Fragment XLI
Evil comes up softly like a flower.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Epilogue"
Evil comes and evil goes.
MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT & BOMB GANG GIRLS
"Mr. & Mrs. Bottomless Pit", Crime for All Seasons
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
HANNAH ARENDT
"Thinking", The Life of the Mind
Here there's no possibility of doing evil. You live in evil. In the absence of remorse. How could you do evil?
JEAN GENET
The Balcony
Wickedness goes to great lengths and depths where it is not checked and restrained by the free and continuous expression of the indignation of good men.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Without followers, evil cannot spread.
MR. SPOCK
"And the Children Shall Lead", Star Trek
The theory of evil being merely permitted by God, is unspeakably absurd; for, if he permits any act, he either does the act himself, or some other power, who is not God, does it; but no other power, which is not God, can possibly do anything whatever; for then there would exist an operative power, acting from itself, independently of God, a power of the Divine Order, only weaker -- which is absurd by the hypothesis that God is absolute.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Remarks on the Science of History
Evil endures a moment's flush, and then--leaves but a burnt out shell.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"