Evil brings men together.
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), (attributed)
Evil draws men together.
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Rhetoric
We must as second best...take the least of the evils.
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Nichomachean Ethics
The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction
you give it.
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982), Atlas Shrugged, 1957
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it
is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact
that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 1966
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being
unable to sit still in a room.
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it
from a religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing.
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)
I know indeed what evil I intend to do,
but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury,
fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.
Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Medea, 431 B.C.
Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking
of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own
misdeeds. Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.
Evelyn Underhill
Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more
difficult than to understand him.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881)
Evil is obvious only in retrospect.
Gloria Steinem (1934 - ), Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions,
1983
Do not seek evil gains; evil gains are the equivalent of disaster.
Hesiod (~800 BC), Works and Days
He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most
harmful to the planner.
Hesiod (~800 BC), Works and Days
Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
Hesiod (~800 BC), Works and Days
Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up with the swift.
Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Odyssey
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men
alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924), Under Western Eyes, 1911
Evil to him who evil thinks.
(Honi Soit Qui Mal Pense)
King Edward the Third (1312 - 1377), Motto of the order of the Garter
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.
Leigh Hunt (1784 - 1859)
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mae West (1892 - 1980), Klondike Annie (1936 film)
It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.
Mary Renault, The Praise Singer, 1978
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real
ones to encounter.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730 - 1774)
All things may corrupt when minds are prone to evil.
Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD)
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC), Dialogues, Apology
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity,
or even a duty.
Simone Weil (1909 - 1943), Gravity and Grace, 1947
The end excuses any evil.
Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC), Electra (c.409 BC)
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919), 'The Strenuous Life,' 1900
Of two evils we must always choose the least.
Thomas a Kempis (1380 - 1471) |