Quotes About Evil

I tell myself I write because I want to say something true and original about the nature of evil. That is very ambitious - to say something about the human condition that hasn't been written before. Probably I will never succeed but that is what I strive to do.

the evil the u are the brighter u will get

The past requires not only that we study it and know it, but also that we learn its lessons - for this simple reason: evil is not just a thing of the past.

We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.

It seems that, once introduced into public life, evil easily perpetuates itself, whereas good is always difficult, rare, and fragile. And yet possible.

People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil.

Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.

no one ever develops and achieves self-awareness in a vacuum, beyond all ears and systems. The period you grow up in and mature in always influences your thinking. This in itself requires no self-criticism. What is more important is how you have allowed yourself to be influenced, whether by good or by evil.

And anyway, no one ever develops and achieves self-awareness in a vacuum, beyond all eras and systems. The period you grow up in and mature in always influence your thinking. This in itself requires no self-criticism. What is more important is how you have allowed yourself to be influenced, whether by good or evil.

I am not interested in why man commits evil; I want to know why he does good.

By the way, even the politicians who often anger me with their short-sightedness and their malice are not, for the most part, evil-minded. They are, rather, inexperienced, easily infected with the particularisms of the time, easily manipulated by suggestive trends and prevailing customs; often they are simply caught up, unwillingly, in the swirl of bad politics, and find themselves unable to extricate themselves because they are afraid of the risks this would entail.

A liberation movement is doomed once it stops to haggle over nuances of good and evil.

It is a grave mistake to think that the Inquisition or the Southern lynchings or the Rwandan genocide were committed by people who were fundamentally different from us. Soul-scarred Vietnam veterans have tried repeatedly to tell us: You don't know what you're capable of until you are there. Only when all of us recognize our own potential for evil, do we have some power to guard against it.

Comprendí en los días que pasé con él que el malvado es, en verdad, un ser ruin que no tiene el valor de mirar a la cara a sus víctimas, que prefiere confiar a otros la odiosa tarea de infligir sufrimiento.

All of the world's peoples see evil in others, in foreigners and in their gods, and I fear there is no remedy for this. Thus they destroyed the most beautiful expressions of our civilization. Thus we destroy the most beautiful expressions of theirs.

I do sometimes strongly hope that in a past life, my most recent life before this, I was absolutely horrible, evil, hideous. Because otherwise - well, hell, to even things up next time around, I'm going to have to pay for this one, am I not?

There are people whose souls have just withered, people who are willing to go along with anything evil - anything so as not to be suspected of disagreeing with whoever is in power.

Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.

Hell is empty. The demons are everywhere apparent.

fear that the police have made a huge personal and professional mistake. They have become foot soldiers for the forces of evil.

Just as darkness cannot put out a candle, evil has no real power over goodness.

Even so, Jefri. You recognize that Nevil is evil?" Jefri looked away from her, as if refusing to answer. After a moment, Amdi said, "You know he's evil, Jefri." Finally