quotations about evil
When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.
BIBLE
Proverbs 21:15
Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost.
AESOP
"The Bee and Jupiter", Aesop's Fables
Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travellers upon their road; they both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find that they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
In some situations there is no absolute good or evil, simply points of view.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
You would not easily guess
All the modes of distress
Which torture the tenants of earth;
And the various evils,
Which like so many devils,
Attend the poor souls from their birth.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Verses on a Cat"
The evil you do to others you may expect in return.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
For every great evil, apparently irremediable, there is reserved, it is probable, somewhere in the design of Providence, an effectual remedy.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
What we call evil, it seems to me, is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, Feb. 1930
Being against evil doesn't make you good.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Islands in the Stream
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Ham on Rye
Most people confuse evil with their own trivial lusts and perversions. Now, true evil is as pure as innocence.
DAMIEN THORNE
The Final Conflict
Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.
ANATOLE FRANCE
The Revolt of the Angels
A man that does nothing but watch evil, never will overcome it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I preferred my villains to be evil and stay that way, to act like Dracula rather than Frankenstein's monster, who ruined everything by handing that peasant girl a flower. He sort of made up for it by drowning her a few minutes later, but, stil, you couldn't look at him the same way again.
DAVID SEDARIS
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Of what use are good words to an evil heart?
LOUIS BECKE
"Solepa", By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore and Other Stories
When anything is in the presence of evil, but is not as yet evil, the presence of good arouses the desire of good in that thing; but the presence of evil, which makes a thing evil, takes away the desire and friendship of the good; for that which was once both good and evil has now become evil only, and the good has no friendship with evil.
PLATO
Lysis
Human beings mostly aren't [evil]. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.
NEIL GAIMAN & TERRY PRATCHETT
Good Omens
One thing I've learned from centuries of combat is that no matter how thoroughly you think you exterminate the evil, it comes creeping back like a cockroach.
DR. FATE
"The Hand of Fate", Superman
People aren't evil and people aren't good. They live how they can one day at a time. They come out of dust they go back to dust, dusty feet, no wings, and whose fault is that?
CARYL CHURCHILL
A Dream Play