quotations about evil
For every great evil, apparently irremediable, there is reserved, it is probable, somewhere in the design of Providence, an effectual remedy.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A man that does nothing but watch evil, never will overcome it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
"The Banality of Heroism", Greater Good, Sep. 1, 2006
Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travellers upon their road; they both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find that they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
I preferred my villains to be evil and stay that way, to act like Dracula rather than Frankenstein's monster, who ruined everything by handing that peasant girl a flower. He sort of made up for it by drowning her a few minutes later, but, stil, you couldn't look at him the same way again.
DAVID SEDARIS
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
In some situations there is no absolute good or evil, simply points of view.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
You would not easily guess
All the modes of distress
Which torture the tenants of earth;
And the various evils,
Which like so many devils,
Attend the poor souls from their birth.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Verses on a Cat"
When there exists anywhere a state of suffering, a wrong, a condition of affairs that men of feeling deplore and that troubles the conscience of the upright, to become resigned to it is wicked. Although the evil flaunts itself before our eyes, and no remedy is in sight, we must go and seek a remedy. In the creation of the God of Justice, evil can be but a transitory state.
CHARLES WAGNER
Justice
When anything is in the presence of evil, but is not as yet evil, the presence of good arouses the desire of good in that thing; but the presence of evil, which makes a thing evil, takes away the desire and friendship of the good; for that which was once both good and evil has now become evil only, and the good has no friendship with evil.
PLATO
Lysis
Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost.
AESOP
"The Bee and Jupiter", Aesop's Fables
Most people confuse evil with their own trivial lusts and perversions. Now, true evil is as pure as innocence.
DAMIEN THORNE
The Final Conflict
One thing I've learned from centuries of combat is that no matter how thoroughly you think you exterminate the evil, it comes creeping back like a cockroach.
DR. FATE
"The Hand of Fate", Superman
Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.
ANATOLE FRANCE
The Revolt of the Angels
Being against evil doesn't make you good.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Islands in the Stream
Of what use are good words to an evil heart?
LOUIS BECKE
"Solepa", By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore and Other Stories
The evil you do to others you may expect in return.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
There are evils, as someone has pointed out, that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever -- money, for instance, or war.
SAUL BELLOW
The Dean's December
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Ham on Rye
What we call evil, it seems to me, is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, Feb. 1930