Quotes on Evil

They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy evil, that they may no longer have have it to regret.

Only a madman would give good for evil

The really difficult moral issues arise, not from a confrontation of good and evil, but from a collision between two goods

If a man who has committed many a misdemeanor does not repent and cleanse his heart of the evil, retribution will come upon his person as sure as the streams run into the ocean which becomes ever deeper and wider. If a man who has committed a misdemeanor come to the knowledge of it, reform himself, and practise goodness, the force of retribution will gradually exhaust itself as a disease gradually loses its baneful influence when the patient perspires.

Riches are a cause of evil, not because, of themselves, they do any evil, but because they goad men on to evil.

What is evil?-Whatever springs from weakness.

To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

The sum of evil, Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.

For this purpose was I born, let all virtuous people understand. I was born to advance righteousness, to emancipate the good, and to destroy all evil-doers root and branch.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey.

True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.

Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.

God is good and God is light In this faith I rest secure, Evil can but serve the right, Over all shall love endure.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

We like to think there is this core of human nature – that good people can't do bad things, and that good people will dominate over bad situations. Infact, when we look at the Stanford prison studies, that we put good people in an evil place, and we saw who won. Well, the sad message in this, is in this case is the evil place won over the good people.

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice. Therefore the Master remains serene in the midst of sorrow. Evil cannot enter his heart. Because he has given up helping, he is people's greatest help. True words seem paradoxical.

The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished. Throughout the history of mankind, if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of all great men and women, it is that of faith in themselves.

It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them.

Laziness is the mother of all evils.

The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.