Evil - Quotes

A great cause of evil in the world is that men seldom think themselves criminal if they offer the same injustice to others that has been successfully practiced on themselves. - Norman MacDonald

A man that does nothing but watch evil, never will overcome it. - Henry Ward Beecher

A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. - Thomas Hardy

All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure evil with evil. - Sophocles

All men are more wicked in thought than action. - Norman MacDonald

All things truly wicked start from an innocence. - Ernest Hemingway

Apathy and evil. The two work hand in hand. They are the same, really.... Evil wills it. Apathy allows it. Evil hates the innocent and the defenseless most of all. Apathy doesn't care as long as it's not personally inconvenienced. - Jake Thoene

Apathy is the glove in which evil slips its hand. - Unknown 

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 behavioural 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

Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others. - Confucius

Being against evil doesn't make you good. - Ernest Hemingway

By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. - Abraham Lincoln

Conquer thy own evils before you judge others. - Edward Counsel

Do not imagine that the good you intend will balance the evil you perform. - Norman MacDonald

Don't be forecasting evil unless it is what you can guard against. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a defense. - Bruce Lee

Don't be in a hurry to change one evil for another. - Aesop

Don’t let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter. - Oliver Goldsmith

Even an evil man can have principles – he can be true to his own evil, which is not always so easy. - Norman Mailer

Evil endures a moment's flush, and then – leaves but a burnt out shell. - Elise Pumpelly Cabot

Evil 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. - Mencius

Evil is retributive: every trespass slips fetters on the will, holds the soul in durance till contrition and repentance restore it to liberty. - Amos Bronson Alcott

Evil is the canker of life. - Edward Counsel

Evil is the plague of the soul. - Edward Counsel

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table. - W. H. Auden

Evil lurks in the heart of man, and anonymity tends to bring it out. Internet flamers would never say the jagged things they do if they had to sign their names. - Garrison Keillor

Evil prevails when good people do nothing. - Erin Gruwell

Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost. - Aesop

Evils are the breathings of the unjust. - Edward Counsel

Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers on their road - Both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived. - Charles Colton 

Evils which we think ended are often displaced by worse ones. - Edward Counsel

For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand. - Miguel de Cervantes

How often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse. - Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil. - Thomas Hobbes

I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil. – Aeschylus

I desire to go through life knowing as little of evil in it as possible. To this end, I sometimes avoid looking too closely into the nature of things, studying them only so far as they seem to be good, and abandoning interest in them as soon as their darker feature begin to appear. The good only deserves a hearty interest. - Christian Nestell Bovee

If a man should do wrong, let him not do again nor take pleasure in it, for painful is  the accumulation of evil. - Unknown

If evils come not then our fears are in vain; and if they do, fear but augments the pain. - Benjamin Franklin 

If you have been tempted into evil, fly from it. It is not falling into the water, but lying in it, that drowns. - Unknown

If you have never done evil, you should not be frightened of devils knocking at your door. - Chinese Proverb

If you speak not, you cannot speak evil. - Edward Counsel

In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. - Ayn Rand

In every man's heart there is a devil, but we do not know the man as bad until the devil is roused. - James Oliver Curwood

In some situations there is no absolute good or evil, simply points of view. - Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

In some way the secret vice exhales its poison; and the evil passion, however cunningly masked, stains through to the surface. - E. H. Chapin

It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes. - George Washington

It is not easy for some men to know they have done evil, for reasoning and honour are often clouded by pride. - Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. - J. R. R. Tolkien

It is some compensation for great evils that they enforce great lessons. - Christian Nestell Bovee

It takes longer to cure evil than to seek it. - Edward Counsel

Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery. - C. S. Lewis

Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favour by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil. - Walt Disney

Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay. - J. R. R. Tolkien

Many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their tell-tale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise. - Dean Koontz

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable. - G. K. Chesterton

Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. - G. K. Chesterton

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way. - Glen Cook

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. - Bertrand Russell

Most people confuse evil with their own trivial lusts and perversions. Now, true evil is as pure as innocence. - Damien Thorne

Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil. - Anatole France

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. - Baltasar Gracian

Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars. Evil does not relent; it must be defeated. And even when defeated, uprooted, and purified by fire, evil leaves behind a seed that will one day germinate and, in blooming, again be misunderstood. - Dean Koontz

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly

No man commits evil for the sake of it; even the Devil himself has some farther design in sinning, than barely the wicked part of it. - Daniel Defoe

No man is permanently and fixedly evil, until he is willingly evil. - Reuen Thomas

Not to punish evil is equivalent to authorizing it. - Leonardo da Vinci

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good. - Edmund Burke

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. Tate

Our present evil is generally thought the worst of our evils, and all our own evils worse than other peoples. - Fluke Greville

Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole. - Carl Jung

Sometimes you do evil to prevent greater evil. - Theodore Postol

The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world. - Max Born

The defenders of evil deeds deserve the same punishment as the doers. - Edward Counsel

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. - Albert Camus

The evil which assails us is not in the localities we inhabit but in ourselves. - Seneca

The evil which does me no harm is like the good which in no wise avails me. - Leonardo da Vinci

The evil you do to others you may expect in return. - Publilius Syrus

The hardest fact in the world to accept is the inevitable mixture of evil with good in all things. - Austin O’Malley

The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces. - Philip Zimbardo

The more you are offended at your evil thoughts, the less they are yours. - Benjamin Whichcote

The most hateful evil in the world is the evil that dresses itself in such a way that men cannot hate it. The men that make wickedness beautiful are the most utterly to be hated. - Henry Ward Beecher

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

The small man thinks that small acts of goodness are of no benefit, and does not do them; and that small deeds of evil do no harm, and does not refrain from them. Hence, his wickedness becomes so great that it cannot be concealed, and his guilt so great that it cannot be pardoned. - Confucius

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil. - Hannah Arendt

The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul. - Andre Maurois   

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, 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. Almost everything, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. - Abraham Lincoln

The truth is that most of us see what we are looking for in this world. If we are looking for evil we find it. The reason is not merely that evil exists all around us. There is another reason, far more potent. By looking for evil in our fellow creatures we bring out evil either from them or from ourselves, perhaps from both. - John Daniel Barry

The ultimate test ... to see the good in evil and the evil in good. - Frank Herbert

The way to overcome evil is to love something that is good. - E. H. Chapin

The whole gamut of good and evil is in every human being, certain notes, from stronger original quality or most frequent use, appearing to form the whole character; but they are only the tones most often heard. The whole scale is in every soul, and the notes most seldom heard will on rare occasions make themselves audible. - Fanny Kemble

The world we live in is a world of mingled good and evil. Whether it is chiefly good or chiefly bad depends on how we take it. To look at the world in such a way as to emphasize the evil is the art of pessimism. To look at it in such a way as to bring out the good, and throw the evil into the background, is the art of optimism. The facts are the same in either case. It is simply a question of perspective and emphasis. - William Dewitt Hyde

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

There is good and there is evil, but the line between them can be almost impossible to find. - Unknown

There is no good or evil, only spirit and matter. Only movement toward the light - and away from it. - Dust Evil

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless. - William Somerset Maugham 

There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory. - Sergei Lukyanenko

There's evil in the world, all right. Being aware of it makes you a realist, not a paranoid. - Dean Koontz

Those who return evil for good should not expect the kindness of others to last long. - Aesop

They that know no evil will suspect none. - Ben Johnson

To cease from evil, to do good, and to purify the mind yourself, this is the teaching of all the Buddhas. - Gautama Buddha

To correct in ourselves what we condemn in others would remove most of the evils of life. - Lemuel K. Washburn

To fight evil, one must know evil. One must journey back through time, and find that fork in the road where heroes turn one way and villains turn another. - Mohinder Suresh

To ignore his capacity for evil is as obtuse as blinding oneself to the heights to which he can soar. - Ariana Franklin

Very few people see their own actions as truly evil.... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not. - Laurel K. Hamilton

We all have dark desires, yearnings for vengeance; and you must remember how those feelings stirred your blood... because what marks the line between good and evil is the choice not to act on them. - Zeddicus Zul Zorander

We return evil for evil, in which there is no sin, for it is necessary to pay a wicked man in his own coin. - Chanakya

We shouldn't tolerate evil just because it’s convenient. - Unknown

We try to bring up our children so that they are protected from the world's evils, only to find we've raised a pack of innocents who seem to be about to stumble into them at every turn just from sheer stupidity! - Samuel R. Delany

What we call evil, it seems to me, is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark. - Henry Ford

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

Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers. - James Henry Leigh Hunt

Where Evil is returned for Evil, the first offender thinks himself excused, because the other is as faulty as he. - Benjamin Whichcote

Without followers, evil cannot spread. - Mr. Spock