Quotes on Evil

There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.

The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.

The challenge of preventing any further proliferation of nuclear weapons is just such a trial in the quest for world peace, one that cannot be achieved if we are defeated by a sense of helplessness. The crucial element is to ensure that any struggle against evil is rooted firmly in a consciousness of the unity of the human family, something only gained through the mastery of our own inner contradictions.

I don't believe in devils. Indifference and misunderstandings can create evil situations. Most of the time, people who appear to be evil are really victims of evil deeds.

Some of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you've endured From evils that never arrived.

The maker of kitsch does not create inferior art, he is not an incompetent or a bungler, he cannot be evaluated by aesthetic standards; rather, he is ethically depraved, a criminal willing radical evil. And since it is radical evil that is manifest here, evil per se, forming the absolute negative pole of every value-system, kitsch will always be evil, not just kitsch in art, but kitsch in every value-system that is not an imitation system.

Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

Do not seek evil gains; evil gains are the equivalent of disaster

One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as "those evil people" or "those poor people who need our help." Nor must we search for signs of "loveworthiness." Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.

A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.

Delight in smooth sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts ... genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation ... the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality ...though free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part in the unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries [WWII]

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.

Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? What sinews are those? - A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.

Enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil before the worst amongst you are given authority over you and then when even the best of you make dua against them, their duas will not be accepted.

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually... it doesn't matter. Because if God does not exist, then life... every second of it... Is all we have.

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what's evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We're less sure about what is good. There's sort of good, good enough, could be better - but absolute good is a little harder to define.

I turn to right and left, in all the earth I see no signs of justice, sense or worth: A man does evil deeds, and all his days Are filled with luck and universal praise; Another's good in all he does - he dies A wretched, broken man whom all despise.