EVIL QUOTES V

quotations about evil

We try to bring up our children so that they are protected from the world's evils, only to find we've raised a pack of innocents who seem to be about to stumble into them at every turn just from sheer stupidity!

SAMUEL R. DELANY

Neverÿon


The more common method of getting rid of an evil, is to merge it in a greater. Thus, if one suffers a loss of half his fortune at play, he overcomes his mortification by--losing the other half. The most ingenious expedient of this kind, was that of the indigent gentleman of rank, who married his washerwoman to get rid of her bill against him.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Wickedness disrobes any man of his excellency.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms


Evil does not approach us as pride any more, but on the contrary as slumber, lassitude, concealment of the "I," and distortion of the beyond. It approaches us in far more dreadful fashion.... It may make us so quickly contented, that any definitive fire will die down. The venomous, breathtaking frigid mist seems able ... to harden hearts and fill them with envy, obduracy and resentment, with bloody scorn for the divine image and light, with all the causes of the only true original sin, which is not wanting to be like God.

ERNST BLOCH

Man on His Own


The most hateful evil in the world is the evil that dresses itself in such a way that men cannot hate it. The men that make wickedness beautiful are the most utterly to be hated.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


To fight evil, one must know evil. One must journey back through time, and find that fork in the road where heroes turn one way and villains turn another.

MOHINDER SURESH

"Chapter Eight: Villains", Heroes


More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.

GLEN COOK

Dreams of Steel


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 is relative.... You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.

GLEN COOK

The Black Company


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"


Because I'm evil, my middle name is misery.

ELVIS PRESLEY

"T-R-O-U-B-L-E", Today


Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.

ANNE RICE

Interview with the Vampire


So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

MARKUS ZUSAK

The Book Thief


As the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare;
so are the sons of men snared in evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.

DORIS LESSING

Ecclesiastes or, The Preacher


In many cases, it is very hard to fix the bounds of Good and Evil, because these part, as Day and Night, which are separated by Twilight.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms


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


Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Illustrated London News, Oct. 23, 1909


Do not be dismayed to learn there is a bit of the devil in you. There is a bit of the devil in us all.

ARTHUR BYRON COVER

Night of the Living Rerun


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


Evil lurks in the heart of man, and anonymity tends to bring it out. Internet flamers would never say the jagged things they do if they had to sign their names.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Renouncing Evil Powers and Anonymity", A Prairie Home Companion, Jan. 12, 2010