quotations about evil
Apathy is the glove in which evil slips its hand.
ANONYMOUS
Evil does not approach us as pride any more, but on the contrary as slumber, lassitude, concealment of the "I," and distortion of the beyond. It approaches us in far more dreadful fashion.... It may make us so quickly contented, that any definitive fire will die down. The venomous, breathtaking frigid mist seems able ... to harden hearts and fill them with envy, obduracy and resentment, with bloody scorn for the divine image and light, with all the causes of the only true original sin, which is not wanting to be like God.
ERNST BLOCH
Man on His Own
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
"Chapter Eight: Villains", Heroes
Do not be dismayed to learn there is a bit of the devil in you. There is a bit of the devil in us all.
ARTHUR BYRON COVER
Night of the Living Rerun
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
Last Watch
Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
ANNE RICE
Interview with the Vampire
All things truly wicked start from an innocence.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A Moveable Feast
Because I'm evil, my middle name is misery.
ELVIS PRESLEY
"T-R-O-U-B-L-E", Today
As the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare;
so are the sons of men snared in evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.
DORIS LESSING
Ecclesiastes or, The Preacher
So much good, so much evil. Just add water.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
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
Neverÿon
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
W. H. AUDEN
"September 1, 1939"
More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.
GLEN COOK
Dreams of Steel
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
"Bloodline", Legend of the Seeker
A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.
THOMAS HARDY
Far from the Madding Crowd
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
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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
"Renouncing Evil Powers and Anonymity", A Prairie Home Companion, Jan. 12, 2010
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
Illustrated London News, Oct. 23, 1909
Evil comes up softly like a flower.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Epilogue"
The theory of evil being merely permitted by God, is unspeakably absurd; for, if he permits any act, he either does the act himself, or some other power, who is not God, does it; but no other power, which is not God, can possibly do anything whatever; for then there would exist an operative power, acting from itself, independently of God, a power of the Divine Order, only weaker -- which is absurd by the hypothesis that God is absolute.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Remarks on the Science of History