Quotes About Evil

Miss Grandison arose and saluted my cousin; who look'd at Sir Charles with reverence, as well as gratitude; at Miss Grandison with delight; and at me with eyes lifted up. And, after a little struggle for  speech; How shall I bear this goodness! said she — This indeed is bringing good out of evil! — Did I not say, my cousin, that I was fallen into the company of angels?

But something had shifted. She pursued it, saying, "My father was a Jew of Venice. 'Tis true: I am of that hated race." He said cautiously, "Much evil is spoken of Jews. But men will speak villainously of anything strange. I am sure they say much that is false.

Para que el Bien tenga mérito —enfatizó— hace falta que exista el Mal.

It takes two to tango" isn't even true on the dance floor. One person can do a lot of evil all on his or her own. But the Theory of Mutual Blame arose sometime before Doc was even born. Perhaps it was a takeoff on Freud's seduction theory or the more generic practice of blaming victims for being alive. Its origins were unclear, but no one had ever had to take full responsibility for their own actions since.

A professor from UBC observed that he agreed with Alexander Pope about the ultimate unreality of evil. Seen from the highest point of metaphysics. To a rational mind, nothing bad ever really happens. He was talking high-minded balls. Twaddle! I thought. I said, 'Oh? Do you mean that every gas chamber has a silver lining?

But the blind did not go around very much. They sat, and didn't seem to have any conversation, and soon you were aware of leisure gone bad. I had learned something of this during Einhorn's days of dirty mental weather. Or of the soul, not the mind, the sick evil of not even knowing why anything should ail you since you're resigned to accept all conditions.

Nietzche himself had a Christian view of history, seeing the present moment always as some crisis, some fall from classical greatness, some corruption or evil to be saved from.

The value of literature lies in these intermittent 'true impressions.' A novel moves back and forth between the world of objects, of actions, of appearances, and that other world, from which these 'true impressions' come and which moves us to believe that the good we hang on to so tenaciously—in the face of evil, so obstinately—is no illusion.

And truth is true only as it brings down more disgrace and dreariness upon human beings, so that if it shows anything except evil it is illusion, and not truth.

it is not their sins per se that characterized evil people, rather it is the subtlety and persistence and consistency of their sins. This is because the central defect of evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it

But just know that there is evil in the world. Real evil. You can fight it, or you can hide and pretend it doesn't exist.

Evil of that magnitude was like a dead star, sucking all the light out of life.

A part of that Power that, always wishing for Evil, only knows how to do Good. -Mephistopheles

I say to you that scholarly fellows [1830] Are like the cattle on an arid heath: Some evil spirit leads them round in circles, While sweet green meadows lie beneath.

Faust: Nun gut wer bist du denn? Mephistopheles: Ein Theil von jener Kraft, Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.

e così, chi sei infine? Io sono una parte di quella forza che eternamente vuole il male e eternamente compie il bene.

For he who in unsettle times is weak, Adds to the evil, and expands its growth.

Sind diese Geschöpfe Eure Kinder? Sie scheinen fürwahr ein Höllengesindel. Geht, ertränkt sie, das wäre das beste, damit sich die Brut nicht über die Erde verbreite! Wenn es die meinigen wären, ich erdrosselte sie.

But my Country has in its Wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant Office that ever the invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived: and as I can do neither good nor Evil, I must be borne away by Others and meet the common Fate.

My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office [the vice-presidency] that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate.

Evil is a fact not to be explained away, but to be accepted and accepted not to be endured, but to be conquered. It is a challenge neither to our reason nor to our patience, but to our courage.

Nature is energy and struggle. It is what exists without any promise. If it can be thought of by man as an arena, a setting, it has to be thought of as one which lends itself as much to evil as to good. Its energy is fearsomely indifferent.

Sextus had little Aramaic, but he could hear the word 'Gehenna', the name of the refuse pit where the evil dead would be buried, being repeated over and over again.

The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth... and kill!