Popular quotes about Evil! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 6
Evil is thus a kind of parasite on goodness. If there were no good by which to measure things, evil could not exist. Men sometimes forget this, and say, there is so much evil in the world that there cannot be a God. They are forgetting that, if there were no God, they would have no way of distinguishing evil from goodness. The very concept of evil admits and recognizes a Standard, a Whole, a Rule, an Order. Nobody would say that his automobile was out of order if he did not have a conception of how an automobile ought to run.
Fulton J. SheenPeople do evil things because they are evil. Some people are evil in the way that some things are coloured indigo. They commit their evil deeds not to achieve some goal, but just because of the sort of people they are.
Terry EagletonEvil exists to glorify the good. Evil is negative good. It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good. What is evil to one at one time, becomes good at another time to somebody else.
MenciusI mean, evil and boredom. Evil and ennui. Evil and the lack of stimulation. Evil and sluggish blood.
Gregory MaguireWhile God is not the author of evil and He never prompts or condones sin, nothing occurs without His sovereign oversight. Others may choose to do evil deeds and God's people may suffer in the short term, but He will transform the evil intentions of evil people into opportunities for the enrichment of those in His care.
Charles R. SwindollIf you just open your dictionary, "morality" is the sense that separates good from evil. And if you really want to see what evil is, it just says that "evil is the opposite of good." And if you ask "Then what is good?" it says that it's the opposite of evil.
Gaspar NoeThe attempt to remove evil from the world by killing a thousand evil - doers, only adds to the evil in the world.
Swami VivekanandaIf the myth of pure evil is that evil is committed with the intention of causing harm and an absence of moral considerations, then it applies to very few acts of so-called 'pure evil' because most evildoers believe what they are doing is forgivable or justifiable.
Steven PinkerEvil-doers who denounce the wise resemble a person who spits against the sky; the spittle will never reach the sky, but comes down on himself. Evil-doers again resemble a man who stirs the dust against the wind; the dust is never raised without doing him injury. Thus, the wise will never be hurt, but the curse is sure to destroy the evil-doers themselves.
Gautama BuddhaThe true roll in determing to embrace or reject anything is not whether it have any evil in it but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.
Seth Grahame-SmithThe truest definition of evil is that which represents it as something contrary to nature; evil is evil because it is unnatural; a vine which should bear olive-berries, an eye to which blue seems yellow, would be diseased; an unnatural mother, an unnatural son, an unnatural act, are the strongest terms of condemnation.
Frederick William RobertsonEvil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood. Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with merry eyes and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.
Dean KoontzThe rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
Jeff CooperOnly humans think death is evil. But it is nature. Evil exist's only in life. There is much good and evil alloted to each life.
Isobelle CarmodyI call God long-suffering and patient precisely because He permits evil in the world. I know that He has no evil in Him and yet if there is evil, He is the author of it and yet untouched by it.
Mahatma GandhiIt's no secret that the Democrat Party considers the American military to be the focus of evil in the modern world. So anything the American military does to eradicate evil, makes the evil that we're eradicating understandable and justified.
Rush LimbaughThe problem with evil people is that they can see only evil in others. It is one of the worst curses of being evil, that you can no longer experience good.
Michael GruberIf God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good, whence evil? If God wills to prevent evil but cannot, then He is not omnipotent. If He can prevent evil but does not, then he is not good. In either case he is not God.
David HumeUp until today evil has lured goodness into evil, but goodness has not been able to lure evil into goodness. This may be the reason why up to today Christianity has not been able to boldly fulfill the Will of God.
Sun Myung MoonJustice demands that the good and hard-working be rewarded and the evil and the lazy be punished (if only by the withholding of the rewards of doing the right things). Modern Liberalism demands that the good and hardworking be punished as the recipients of an unfair advantage and the evil and the lazy be rewarded, their acts of evil and their failure all the proof the Modern Liberal needs that somehow they have been victimized by forces out of their control.
Evan SayetFor a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil. The warrior confronted with such a war should be pleased, Arjuna, for it comes as an open gate to heaven. But if you do not participate in this battle against evil, you will incur sin, violating your dharma and your honor.
Swami VivekanandaIn the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune.
Niccolo MachiavelliGod created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning.
Peter KreeftWe have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
John SteinbeckMost evil in the world is only partly because of an evil person. Most of it is because of the complicity of bystanders.
Tim KainePaul Ryan, he is the real evil genius of the Republican party. He with his little hateful widow's peak and his smirky, snarly, simpering non-entity self, that's who I detest. Trump's just a moron, but Ryan is ugly and evil.
Richard FordA good person will resist an evil system with his whole soul. Disobedience of the laws of an evil state is therefore a duty.
Mahatma GandhiNo intelligent man believes that anybody ever willingly errs or willingly does base and evil deeds; they are well aware that all who do base and evil things do them unwillingly.
ProtagorasEvil is an act, not an appetite. How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table? Present company excepted of course. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal.
Gregory MaguireI do not believe evil men are led by God. I believe there are plots of evil. We live in a sinful world, and there are a lot of things that happen as a result of sin.
Anne Graham LotzNever violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the persuit of evil.
David GemmellWhen happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
William James... when death has been brought upon a saint, we ought not to think that an evil has happened to him but a thing indifferent; which is an evil to a wicked man, while to the good it is rest and freedom from evils. 'For death is rest to a man whose way is hidden' (Job 3:23 LXX). And so a good man does not suffer any loss from it.
John CassianWe have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases.
George OrwellThere are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the last few decades there certainly have been some notable changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question had an excellent effect in increased manliness.
Theodore RooseveltLaws are like medicine; they generally cure an evil by a lesser or a passing evil.
Otto von BismarckUltimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.
Reinhold NiebuhrIn matter-ism (materialism), there can be nothing wrong with the world since there is no right way for the world to be in the first place. Everything is just matter in motion and that's that. In Mind-ism (monism) there's a different route to the same problem. There cannot be a problem of evil, even in principle, since in Mind-ism even morality is maya; illusion. In neither story, then (if we're to be consistent with their principles), can the issue of evil be raised. But in real life the problem comes up all the time. That's the difficulty.
Greg KouklHistory will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Evil is the voltage of good; the urge to goodness, without the potential of evil, is trivial.
James Tiptree Jr."You could lie to me. You could tell me to be encouraged, that good will triumph over evil.""Good will triumph over evil," said Richard. "Liar."
Joan BauerWe sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare.
Blaise PascalFoolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.
Thomas CarlyleAnimals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do.We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. [. . .] The animals need only be and do.We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom.
Ursula K. Le Guin