quotations about evil
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
Evil comes and evil goes.
MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT & BOMB GANG GIRLS
"Mr. & Mrs. Bottomless Pit", Crime for All Seasons
Evil endures a moment's flush, and then--leaves but a burnt out shell.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
Where Evil is returned for Evil, the first offender thinks himself excused, because the other is as faulty as he.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Fairly examined, truly understood,
No man is wholly bad, nor wholly good.
THEOGNIS OF MEGARA
Fragment XLI
All the evil that is tormenting the world seemed to him to be concentrated in a "red flower," in one red flower. It was but necessary to tear it down, and the incessant, heart-rending cries and moans which rise to the indifferent sky from all points of the earth, like its natural breathing, would be silenced. The evil of the world, he believed, lay in the evil will and in the madness of the people. They themselves were to blame for being unhappy, and they could be happy if they wished. This seemed so clear and simple that Max was dumfounded in his amazement at human stupidity. Humanity reminded him of a crowd huddled together in a spacious temple and panic-stricken at the cry of "Fire!"
LEONID ANDREYEV
"Love
No man is compelled to evil; his consent only makes it his.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
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
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
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
Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery.
C. S. LEWIS
The Magician's Nephew
The world we live in is a world of mingled good and evil. Whether it is chiefly good or chiefly bad depends on how we take it. To look at the world in such a way as to emphasize the evil is the art of pessimism. To look at it in such a way as to bring out the good, and throw the evil into the background, is the art of optimism. The facts are the same in either case. It is simply a question of perspective and emphasis.
WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE
The Art of Optimism
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
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
Evil and good are God's right hand and left.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
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
Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"The Flying Stars", The Innocence of Father Brown
Only as men succeed in seeing no evil in others will they become free from sin, and sorrow, and suffering.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole.
CARL JUNG
Memories