quotations about evil
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
Evil endures a moment's flush, and then--leaves but a burnt out shell.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
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
Universal bond, we're all the same
Evil man, not to be tamed
Open your mind, and you will find
You're just as evil, as evil as I
LAKE OF TEARS
"Evil Inside", Greater Art
Evil is the canker of life.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The hardest fact in the world to accept is the inevitable mixture of evil with good in all things.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The truth is that most of us see what we are looking for in this world. If we are looking for evil we find it. The reason is not merely that evil exists all around us. There is another reason, far more potent. By looking for evil in our fellow creatures we bring out evil either from them or from ourselves, perhaps from both.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"The Imaginary People", Reactions and Other Essays
The idea ... that collective society should take hold of Evil and set it down hard in its chair and make it cry seems to many of us absolutely sound. Of course, we feel that it is not for us, those who love righteousness, to jump on the necks of the wicked. We prefer to have it attended to in a more dignified, impersonal way by Society as a whole.
GERALD STANLEY LEE
Crowds
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
Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars. Evil does not relent; it must be defeated. And even when defeated, uprooted, and purified by fire, evil leaves behind a seed that will one day germinate and, in blooming, again be misunderstood.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Apocalypse
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
Even an evil man can have principles--he can be true to his own evil, which is not always so easy.
NORMAN MAILER
The Paris Review, winter-spring 1964
Without followers, evil cannot spread.
MR. SPOCK
"And the Children Shall Lead", Star Trek
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
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
The small man thinks that small acts of goodness are of no benefit, and does not do them; and that small deeds of evil do no harm, and does not refrain from them. Hence, his wickedness becomes so great that it cannot be concealed, and his guilt so great that it cannot be pardoned.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
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
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
Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters, for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves we collude with it through our apathy.
J. K. ROWLING
speech, Jun. 5, 2008
It is not easy for some men to know they have done evil, for reasoning and honor are often clouded by pride.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino