Quotes About Evil

Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars. Evil does not relent; it must be defeated. And even when defeated, uprooted, and purified by fire, evil leaves behind a seed that will one day germinate and, in blooming, again be misunderstood.

Not everything that happens during the day is an open portending a good or evil development in the future, but everything has meaning to one degree or another, for the world is an ever-weaving tapestry from which no thread can be pulled without destroying the integrity of the cloth.

Sully disapproved of destruction for destruction's sake, which seemed ever more popular in the modern world, but he always took delight in burning out or otherwise eliminating Evil when Evil just couldn't keep its ugly head down and stay in the shadows, when it came right at you with all teeth bared. The world needed a little Evil, so Good had something to compare itself to, but you couldn't let it think it had the right-of-way on the road and an invitation to dinner.

When she returned, she smiled and said, We were at the movies once, and this dork took two phone calls during the film. Later we followed him, and Andre broke both his legs with a baseball bat. This proved that even the most evil people could occasionally have a socially responsible impulse.

The world needed a little Evil, so Good had something to compare itself to, but you couldn't let it think it had the right-of-way on the road and an invitation to dinner.

Small-town boy meets big-time evil.

some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.

Love scrubs the worst stains clean. Anyway, there can be no retreat in the face of evil, only resistance. And commitment.

These days, all I ask Fate is that the people she hurls into my life, whether they are evil or good, or morally bipolar, should be amusing to one degree or another.

When I was a child, I first thought that these shades might be malevolent spirits who fostered evil in those people around whom they swarmed. I've since discovered that many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.

For the first time, he considered that utter indifference might inspire not inner peace but a limitless capacity for evil.

Virtue is imaginative, evil repetitive.

The idea that there's good and evil knowledge . . . well, that's strictly a religious point of view. Actions can be either moral or immoral, yes, but knowledge can't be labeled that way. To a scientist, to any educated man or woman, all knowledge is morally neutral.

Who in all the world ever stands up to really outrageous evil? Not many. Most people satisfy themselves by strongly opposing little evils, like hurtful words and unpopular ideas and gluttony, where the risk of angering violent people is low.

Power is the central promise of evil, the dark light of that lamp, because nothing extinguishes the soul more quickly than pride in power.

The world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change . . . The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

Dedicated Practitioners of Evil," or DPEs.

These days, all I ask of Fate is that the people she hurls into my life, whether they are evil or good, or morally bipolar, should be amusing to one degree or another. This is a big request to make of busy Fate, who has billions of lives to keep in constant turmoil.

I would only add this: It is also essential that good men and women not be educated and propagandized into believing that real evil is a myth and that all malevolent behavior is merely the result of a broken family's or a failed society's shortcomings, amenable to cure by counseling and by the application of new economic theory.

I believed suddenly not merely in evil as a necessary antagonist in movies and books—bad guys and boogeymen—not merely in evil as the consequence of parental rejection or parental indulgence or social injustice, but in Evil as a presence alive in the world.

There is no fate, only free will, and we were just in the way of other people's free will when they decided to do the Devil's work. People are doing the Devil's work everywhere you go; there's no avoiding it unless you go live on a mountaintop somewhere, a hundred miles from everyone.

good men and women not be educated and propagandized into believing that real evil is a myth and that all malevolent behavior is merely the result of a broken family's or a failed society's shortcomings, amenable to cure by counseling and by the application of new economic theory.

was not merely weak but also evil to throw away your life when so many had their lives or the promise of their future taken from them by cruel people or by the brutal forces of nature.

THE INNOCENT BOY, THE EVIL FATHER, THE ANTS, THE FISH, THE BIRDS