logo

Quotes About Evil

For, he (The Devil) observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the West.("The Legend of Monte Del Diablo")
~ Bret Harte
He drew on his coat. "I am sorry, Felix. It is just that I am tired of being told I look at life too simply. It isn't naïve to believe that good exists, that evil exists. I have known both of them. I've seen them. I've felt them. They aren't just ideas that you can twist into neat phrases. They aren't words to be clever with. They are too vital. We live by them. Or else we make everything meaningless.
~ Helen MacInnes
You're still trapped in that blind worship of the intellect. . . . . . Something about her zeal repels me, even though I do respect her. There's a germ of fanaticism in that fierce enthusiasm to save the world and redeem mankind—a touch of coercion and relentlessness that's frightening to me. She wants to fight evil or what she sees as evil—but couldn't that combativeness degenerate into an evil itself? My intellect asks that question and I can't silence it.
~ Hella S. Haasse
We do not sufficiently respect that anti-mephistoclean force which, like the mephistoclean one, threatens the balance of life: a force that constantly wishes what is good and constantly produces what is evil.
~ Helmuth Plessner
The devil, cheated of his legitimate portion of human life, avenges itself by taking over all of life.
~ Helmuth Plessner
All things truly wicked start from an innocence.
~ Hemingway Ernest
He dedicado mucho tiempo de mi vida a los crímenes y a las investigaciones de los mismos. Mi planteamiento es que el mal siempre es fruto de las circunstancias, nunca es congénito. He escrito sobre crímenes porque ilustran mejor que ninguna otra cosa las contradicciones que constituyen la base de la vida humana.
~ Henning Mankell
There are evil circumstances and environments, not evil per se. But here I sense the actions of a truly darkened mind. Wallander reached for Svedberg's pocket calendar
~ Henning Mankell
Heb 5,14, como un ejercicio de los espiritualmente maduros «que, por la costumbre, tienen las facultades ejercitadas en el discernimiento del bien y del mal»;
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen
El demonio es paciente en su empeño por devorar y destruir la obra de Dios.
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen
The wounds and needs that lie behind the wars we condemn are the wounds and needs we share with the whole human race. We too are deeply marked by the dark forces that make one war emerge after another. We too are a part of the evil we protest against." (p.32)
~ Henri Nouwen
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
~ Henry David Thoreau
The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in a single, solitary, even humble individual. For it is within the soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.
~ Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
~ Henry David Thoreau
God is alone,-but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion.
~ Henry David Thoreau
There are thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
~ Henry David Thoreau
It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This
~ Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. Some
~ Henry David Thoreau
God is alone,--but the devil...he is legion.
~ Henry David Thoreau
In Truth, none seem to have any Title to assert Human Nature to be necessarily and universally evil, but those whose own Minds afford them one Instance of this natural Depravity.
~ Henry Fielding
Make (the reader) think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications. My values are positively all blanks, save so far as an excited horror, a promoted pity, a created expertness... proceed to read into them more or less fantastic figures.
~ Henry James
And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of demons, is what brings the others back.
~ Henry James
Esta vez era otra persona…, una figura de inconfundible maldad: una mujer vestida de negro, pálida y horrible… ¡Oh, qué aire el suyo, qué cara…! Estaba del otro lado del lago. Yo estaba allí con la niña, muy tranquila en ese momento, cuando de repente apareció.
~ Henry James
She wondered why a prison should have such an evil face if it was erected in the interest of justice and order–an expression of the righteous forces of society.
~ Henry James