Quotes on Evil

Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say.

Evil doesn’t have to be an overt act; it can be merely the absence of good. If you have the ability, the resources, and the opportunity to do good and you do nothing, that can be evil.

No man chooses evil because it's evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

One of the first things a family tries to teach its children is the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. One of the first things our schools do is destroy that distinction.

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

People are just afraid of things too much … Sure, evil exists, extremism exists. Somebody could commit a hate crime and hurt me. But they could do the same just because I'm black. They could do the same just because I'm American.

Is there not in every human soul a primitive spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world and immortal in the next, which can be developed by goodness, kindled, lit up, and made to radiate, and which evil can never entirely extinguish.

Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon . . . is not the dragon the hero of his own story?

Most men think graft a sporadic evil, breaking out here and there, with no connection between outbreaks. I shared the same opinion, but very soon I discovered that the graft in the cities always leads to the graft in the State.

Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.

I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.

But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,_x000D_ _x000D_ Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?_x000D_ _x000D_ Yes, thou wilt love me with exceeding love,_x000D_ _x000D_ And I will tenfold all that love repay;_x000D_ _x000D_ Still smiling, though the tender may reprove,_x000D_ _x000D_ Still faithful, though the trusted may betray.

The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism.

If your religion doesn't teach you the difference between good and evil, your religion is worse than useless.

By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists . . . Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.

To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.

To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds.

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

By experience; by a sense of human frailty; by a perception of "the soul of goodness in things evil;" by a cheerful trust in human nature; by a strong sense of God's love; by long and disciplined realization of the atoning love of Christ; only thus can we get a free, manly, large, princely spirit of forgiveness.