Quotes on Evil

The principal use of prudence, of self-control, is that it teaches us to be masters of our passions, and to so control and guide them that the evils which they cause are quite bearable, and that we even derive joy from them all.

He who harbors hatred and bitterness injures himself far more than the one towards whom he manifests these evil propensities.

But magic is neither good nor evil. It is a tool, like a knife. Is a knife evil? Only if the wielder is evil.

Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should.

Leo Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non­resistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self­suffering.

The nearer a man lives to God, the more intensely has he to mourn over his own evil heart." -Charles Spurgeon

And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.

The devil makes many disciples by preaching against sin. He convinces them that the great evil of sin, induces a crisis of guilt by which “God is satisfied," and after that he lets them spend the rest of their lives meditating on the intense sinfulness and evident reprobation of other men.

Kira is evil ... There's no denying that ... But lately I've been starting to think of it more like this ... The real evil is the power to kill people. Someone who finds himself with that power is cursed. No matter how you use it, anything obtained by killing people can never bring true happiness.

The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.

I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.

He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest, about the evil things and the good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles.

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

It is our own evil thoughts which madden us.

Let's face it: Sadness and evil are always more believable than happiness and love. When a movie reviewer calls a film "realistic," everyone knows what that means--it means the movie has an unhappy ending.

Know mankind well, don't degrade every man as evil, and don't exalt every man thinking he is good. He who cannot discover himself; cannot discover the world.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.

It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future. We are, indeed, often cruel and evil. Nobody can deny this. We gang up on each one another, we torture each other, with words as well as deeds, we fight, we kill. But we are also capable of the most noble, generous, and heroic behavior.

The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.