Good Evil Quotes - Page 2

• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Peace, War

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1996). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.43, Hackett Publishing

  154 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Honesty, Integrity, Writing

  1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

  118 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Hannah Arendt

  Inspirational, Peace, Emo

  "The Life of the Mind". Book by Hannah Arendt. Chapter: "Thinking", 1978.

  188 Copy quote

  Show source

• The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

  M. Scott Peck

  Change, Integrity, Heart

  M. Scott Peck (2015). “The People Of The Lie”, p.290, Random House

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.

  Eric Burdon

  Struggle, Winning, Evil

  48 Copy quote

• Evil events from evil causes spring.

  Aristophanes

  Spring, Evil, Events

  Aristophanes, Thomas Mitchell (1820). “The comedies of Aristophanes”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.

  Henry Fielding

  Sorry, Men, Evil

  12 Copy quote

• No man chooses evil because it's evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Happiness, Mistake, Men

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2008). “A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men”, Cosimo, Inc.

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• All evils are equal when they are extreme.

  Pierre Corneille

  Evil, Equal, Extremes

  "Horace". Book by Pierre Corneille, III. 4, 1639.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anything which is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will to life.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Essence, Evil, Dying

  7 Copy quote

• The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hurt, Integrity, Evil

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.

  Jim Butcher

  Evil, Confusing, Know How

  Jim Butcher (2007). “Proven Guilty: A Novel Of the Dresden Files”, p.185, Penguin

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The human race will disappear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will also disappear. Everything will disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense as the free motion of elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, feelings? Pure 'Victorian fictions'. Only egotism exists.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Stars, Light, Race

  31 Copy quote

• Since the purpose of reading, of education, is to become good, our most important task is to choose the right books. Our personal set of stories, our canon, shapes our lives. I believe it is a law of the universe that we will not rise above our canon. Our canon is part of us, deeply, subconsciously. And the characters and teachings in our canon shape our characters--good, evil, mediocre, or great.

  Oliver DeMille

  Believe, Book, Teaching

  4 Copy quote

• When [Bill Clinton] was running for president. I'll never forget this one. He was running in New Hampshire. He was not doing well. And he suddenly, over a weekend, rushed back to Little Rock to execute a guy who had killed a cop, but in the process, the policeman had shot him in the head and he was out of it. He didn't know today from tomorrow, good, evil, whatever. His lawyer begged - his lawyer was an old friend of Clinton.

  Nat Hentoff

  Running, Weekend, Rocks

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse.

  Richard Cecil

  Evil, Unbelief

  7 Copy quote

• Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

  Isaiah

  Sweet, Light, Woe Unto

  23 Copy quote

• I guess I could be singing about Superman, or about Zarathustra coming down from the mountain, but in my mind I was singing about Julian Assange. I wish I could say that Nietzsche inspired my lyrics but all I can honestly say is I was inspired by the graphic design of these '70s paperback covers for Beyond Good & Evil and The Birth of Tragedy and The Gay Science.

  Dean Wareham

  Gay, Evil, Design

  Source: therumpus.net

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf.

  Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

  Evil, Laughing, Leafs

  7 Copy quote

• The mind of one who practises doesn't run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don't enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer.

  Ajahn Chah

  Running, Evil, Mind

  Achaan Chah, Ajahn Chah (2006). “A Taste of Freedom: Selected Dhamma Talks”, p.48, Buddhist Publication Society

  102 Copy quote

  Show source

• America as did with Israel with its blessing has been turning away from God driving Him out of its public squares. Bring in idols in its place and calling what is evil good and what is good evil. ... The glory of the city on the hill is fading and America now stands in danger of impending judgment, and we all know it.

  Jonathan Cahn

  Blessing, Squares, Israel

  16 Copy quote

• It is an assumption that there is always one single dimension for assessing persons and their actions that has canonical priority. This is the dimension of moral evaluation; "good/evil" is supposed always to trump any other form of evaluation, but that is an assumption, probably the result of the long history of the Christianisation and then gradual de-Christianisation of Europe, which one need not make. Evaluation need not mean moral evaluation, but might include assessments of efficiency, ... simplicity, perspicuousness, aesthetic appeal, and so on.

  Raymond Geuss

  Mean, Assessment, Europe

  "Philosophy and Real Politics". Book by Raymond Geuss, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• God, the devil, good, evil, it's all in our heads, not in Heaven or Hell, which we also invented. We do not realize that, having invented God, we immediately became His slaves.

  Jose Saramago

  Evil, Heaven, Islam

  "'La muerte es la inventora de Dios'". Interview with Francesc Relea, elpais.com. October 17, 2009.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Knowledge is always two-edged. For every benefit, there is hazard. For every good, evil.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Two, Evil, Hazards

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.94, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Evil, Mind, Empty

  5 Copy quote