Quotes on Evil

The human race has reached a turning point. Man has opened the secrets of nature and mastered new powers. If he uses them wisely, he can reach new heights of civilization. If he uses them foolishly, they may destroy him. Man must create the moral and legal framework for the world which will insure that his new powers are used for good and not for evil.

Were I disposed to consider the comparative merit of each of them [facts or theories in medical practice], I should derive most of the evils of medicine from supposed facts, and ascribe all the remedies which have been uniformly and extensively useful, to such theories as are true. Facts are combined and rendered useful only by means of theories, and the more disposed men are to reason, the more minute and extensive they become in their observations

No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.

We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.

The evils of popular government appear greater than they are; there is compensation for them in spirit and energy it awakens.

Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.

Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.

The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions, but by compelling them to yield their vigor to our moral nature.

The writer cultivates, extends, raises and inflates his imagination, sure that this is his destiny, his usefulness, his contribution to the understanding of good and evil. As he inflates his imagination he inflates his capacity for evil.

An infant prodigy of nine is shoved upon the stage in white. She starts off in a dismal whine about a dark and stormy night, a burglar, whose heart is true, despite his wicked-looking face, who puts the little child in doom, to save her mamma's jewel case. This may bring tears to every eye; it does not set my heart on fire. I'd like to stand serenely by and watch that horrid child expire.

Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and god himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.

White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so; life's business being just the terrible choice.

No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.

Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.

Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

Malice often takes the garb of truth.

To great evils we submit, we resent little provocations.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupts, but being seasoned with a gracious voice obscures the show of evil.

The combative instinct is a savage prompting by which one man's good is found in another's evil.

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.

I, God, am in your midst. Whoever knows me can never fall. Not in the heights, nor in the depths, nor in the breadths. For I am love, which the vast expanses of evil can never still.