Evil - christiansquoting.org.uk

One does evil enough when one does nothing good. --German proverb

If a man does evil, it will roll back upon him, and he will not know where it came from. Sirach 27:27

We do not easily suspect evil of those whom we love the most. --Peter Abelard c1132 Historia Calamitatum Ch.6

I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils. --Aeschylus (525-456 BC)

We need not despair of any man, so long as he lives. For God deemed it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit evil at all. -- Augustine (345-430)

Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself.--Thomas Benton Brooks (1608-1680)

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

Those that set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932)In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software,1994.

Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which you are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal, and that you are a paralytic. &emdash;G. K. Chesterton, _As I Was Saying_

We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called this book "What Is Wrong with the World?" and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right. -- G. K. Chesterton, from "What Is Wrong With The World"

If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.--Cicero

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.--Christopher Dawson (1889-1970)_The Judgment of the Nations_ [1942]

One may argue about the precise role of religion in the terrorists' mindset, but Mr Blair and Mr Bush, both of them religious believers who purport to derive their moral stances from their religions, are certainly not part of the problem: on the contrary, they are leading the solution. Mr Bush, speaking to an audience of children, addressed the question that everyone has asked: "Why would somebody hate so badly"? And he replied: "my answer is, there's evil in the world. But we can overcome evil. We're good." This is the simple truth &emdash; a truth on which all our futures depend &emdash; yet the moment Mr Bush uttered it, all the intellectuals in the Western world winced. Even those who, like myself, agreed with the proposition, winced, vicariously, because we recognised the intensity of the taboo that was being broken. -- David Deutsch, "What Now", Oct. 25, 2001 http://www.edge.org/documents/whatnow/whatnow_deutsch.html

Who in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny that the twentieth century was mine, all of it Kevin, all of it mine?
John Milton aka Satan, in Devil's Advocate 1997

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. --Justice William O. Douglas (1976)

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

Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.--Mahatma Gandhi

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 (1822-1893) In "Rutherford B. Hayes and His America," 1954.

The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind. -- Eric Hoffer

The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade, not *for* God in themselves, but *against* the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself.-- Aldous Huxley, _The Devils of Loudun_

One matter Englishmen don't think in the least funny is their happy consciousness of possessing a deep sense of humor. - Marshall McLuhan (1911 &endash; 1980)

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. --Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practiced perfidy grow faithless to each other. --Samuel Johnson

Wickedness must be opposed by some, or virtue would be entirely driven out of the world. -- Samuel Johnson: Sermon 17

Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen. Thomas à Kempis. 1380-1471. Imitation of Christ. Book iii. Chap. 12

For such is the weakness of human nature, alas, that evil is often more readily believed and spoken of another than good. But perfect men do not easily believe every tale that is told them, for they know that man's nature is prone to evil, and his words to deception.
Thomas à Kempis'_The Imitation of Christ_ [c. 1420]: --Bk. 1, ch. 4: "On Prudence in Action"

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) _Stride Toward Freedom_ [1958]

No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good. There is a silly idea about that good people don't know what temptation means. --Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) _The Screwtape Letters_ [1941]

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. -- H.L.Mencken

So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride &emdash; the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil. Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples of the earth &emdash; they are the focus of evil in the modern world. The Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith &emdash; the second oldest in the world &emdash; first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: 'Ye shall be as gods.'-- Ronald Reagan.

Though hardness of heart is a great evil, it is no greater an evil than softness of head. --Theodore. Roosevelt.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out. --Bertrand Russell

If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Of two evils choose neither.-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The problem of evil assumes the existence of a world-purpose. What, we are really asking, is the purpose of suffering? It seems purposeless. Our question of the why of evil assumes the view that the world has a purpose, and what we want to know is how suffering fits into and advances this purpose. The modern view is that suffering has no purpose because nothing that happens has any purpose: the world is run by causes, not by purposes.... W. T. Stace, Religion and the Modern Mind [1953]

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -- Henry David Thoreau

He who does not punish evil commands it to be done. --Leonardo da Vinci

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied, full of charm; imaginary good is tiresome and flat. Real evil, however, is dreary, monotonous, barren. Real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. -- Simone Weil

Between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never tried before. --Mae West

Evil indulged in eventually becomes evil that controls us.-- John White

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