Quotes About Evil

The evil never attains to any real friendship, either with good or evil.

The author's Socrates admonishes paramount awareness human limitations. If we do good to those we evaluate as good and evil to those we evaluate at the evil, and we are wrong, we have been made the world less just.

Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking - these actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.

They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils

There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.

For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

But it is not possible, Theodorus, that evil should be destroyed--for there must always be something opposed to the good; nor is it possible that it should have its seat in heaven. But it must inevitably haunt human life, and prowl about this earth. That is why a man should make all haste to escape from earth to heaven; and escape means becoming as like God as possible; and a man becomes like God when he becomes just and pious, with understanding.

For to fear death, men, is in fact nothing other than to seem to be wise, but not to be so. For it is to seem to know what one does not know: no one knows whether death does not even happen to be the greatest of all goods for the human being; but people fear it as though they knew well that it is the greatest of evils.

A great work—yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself. The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown—is there anything more which you wish to say? Nothing

Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature, and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise.

as long as we possess the body, and our soul is contaminated by such an evil, we'll surely never adequately gain what we desire —and that, we say, is truth. (...) besides, it fills us up with lusts and desires, with fears and fantasies of every kind, and with any amount of trash, so that really and truly we are, as the saying goes, never able to think of anything at all because of it.

to suffer is better than to do evil;' and the art of rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of self-accusation.

May we not say that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?

For no government of men depends solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals—some appeal to the imagination of the masses—some pretence to the favour of heaven—some element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained.

I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.

SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power is a benefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an evil and is no power. But let us look at the matter in another way:—do we not acknowledge that the things of which we were speaking, the infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property are sometimes a good and sometimes not a good?

Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate? Yes, he said; and you, friend, would agree. No matter whether I should or not; just now, not what I think, but what you are saying, is the point at issue. Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil: for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.

We know it to be universally true that every seed and growth, whether vegetable or animal, that the more vigorous it is the more it falls short of its proper perfection when deprived of the food, the place, the season that suits it. For evil is more opposed to the good than the not-good.

Every evildoer began by despising the Gods; and one not previously corrupt, taking to this contempt, even though in other respects not wholly bad, becomes an evildoer by the very fact.

Because of the power and nature of Good, evil is not just evil; since it appeared of necessity, it is bound with certain beautiful chains, like prisoners bound with golden chains, hidden by these, so that, being like this, it is not seen by the gods, and human beings do not always have to look at evil. But whenever they look, they are accompanied by images of Beauty to recollect.

My grandmother told me you shouldn't try to define evil, that the minute you think you've got it all pinned down, a kind of evil you never even thought of will sneak up behind you and jump inside your head. I don't think anyone knows what evil is. I don't think anyone has the right to say.

No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man's presumption made of man in Auschwitz.

For good or evil, we are a single people: the more we become conscious of this, the less difficult and long will be humanity's progress toward justice and peace.