Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
There are no evil people; there are perfectly good people who are of the track, but they do not need condemnation or punishment; they only need to get upon the rails again.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
It is some compensation for great evils, that they enforce great lessons.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
The “Spirit of Evil “entices a man in this world, and testifies against him in the next.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Now I know the full power of evil. It makes ugliness seem beautiful and goodness seem ugly and weak.
—August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish Playwright, Novelist, Essayist
There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) English Painter, Writer
We believe at once in evil, we only believe in good upon reflection.—Is not this sad?
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
Nothing is evil which is according to nature.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
Must I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
Evil spelled backward is live.
—Anonymous
The devil has the power to assume a pleasing shape.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
One uncooperative employee can sabotage an entire organization because bad spirit is more contagious than good spirit.
—Robert Half
There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with too much dejection.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Crime in the city streets is more than a political issue. It’s a too rampant fact…. In Indianapolis they have come up with a most sensible, affordable approach to the problem. Policemen are assigned their police patrol cars for personal use after hours. They are encouraged to use the police car while taking the family shopping, to the movies, and everywhere one takes one’s family. As a result, says the Police Chief’s assistant, we may have as many as 400 cars on the street instead of 100 or so per shift. (And) the presence of the police car obviously indicates the proximity of policemen.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
He made no complaint whatsoever about the bad reputation he had attracted throughout the world, assured me that he himself was the person most concerned by the destruction of superstition, and admitted to me that as far as his own power was concerned he had been afraid on only one occasion, which was when he had heard a preacher, more subtle than his colleagues, shout out from the pulpit: ‘Dearly beloved, never forget, when you hear anyone vaunt the progress of enlightenment, that the Devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist!’
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
—Charles Darwin (1809–82) English Naturalist
The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things—the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Good courage in a bad affair is half of the evil overcome.
—Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus) (c.250–184 BCE) Roman Comic Playwright
It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist
When evil acts in the world it always manages to find instruments who believe that what they do is not evil but honorable.
—Max Lerner (1902–92) Russian-born American Journalist
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
It is safest to be moderately base—to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
One soweth and another reapeth is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
Badness is only spoiled goodness.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
For good and evil in our actions meet; wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
—The Dhammapada Buddhist Anthology of Verses
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Evil acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the present.
—Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–73) American Head of State, Political leader
The old assumption of the approximate impossibility of war really rested on a similar assumption about the impossibility of evil-and especially of evil in high places.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
—Thomas Hood (1799–1845) English Poet, Humorist
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Try to understand that there is more thoughtlessness than malice in the world. People are not out to offend you deliberately and maliciously. But all of us are thoughtless at times and do not readily realize that our words and actions are going to hurt people.
—Lawrence G. Lovasik
In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.
—Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–93) President of the United States
If you know that a thing is unrighteous, then use all dispatch in putting an end to it—why wait till next year?
—Mencius (c.371–c.289 BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
Let me give you the definition of ethics: it is good to maintain life and to further life. It is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.
—Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French Theologian, Musician, Philosopher, Physician
The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
—Heywood Broun (1888–1939) American Journalist
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.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman