evil

1.

This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.

- Lawrence, D. H.

2.

KING'S EVIL, n. A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the sovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians. Thus'the most pious Edward" of England used to lay his royal hand upon the ailing subjects and make them whole -- a crowd of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great essay of art; but at his touch, Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand, They presently amend, as the "Doctor" in _Macbeth_ hath it. This useful property of the royal hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown properties; for according to "Malcolm," 'tis spoken To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the disease once honored with the name "king's evil" now bears the humbler one of "scrofula," from _scrofa_, a sow. The date and author of the following epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but it is old enough to show that the jest about Scotland's national disorder is not a thing of yesterday. Ye Kynge his evill in me laye, Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye. He layde his hand on mine and sayd: "Be gone!" Ye ill no longer stayd. But O ye wofull plyght in wh. I'm now y-pight: I have ye itche! The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is dead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of custom to keep its memory green. The practice of forming a line and shaking the President's hand had no other origin, and when that great dignitary bestows his healing salutation on strangely visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once was kindled at the altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of men. It is a beautiful and edifying "survival" -- one which brings the sainted past close home in our "business and bosoms."

- Ambrose Bierce

3.

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.

- Soren Kierkegaard

4.

Every journalist owes tribute to the evil one.

- La Fontaine, Jean De

5.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

6.

Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish.

- Smith, Logan Pearsall

7.

When we make mistakes they call it evil. When God makes mistakes they call it Nature!

- Jack Nicholson's character in The Witches of Eastwick

8.

Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.

- Weil, Simone

9.

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even -- if you will -- eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.

- Brodsky, Joseph

10.

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

- Henry Miller

11.

Do you suffer your thoughts to tamper with evil; and to dally with wrong-doing? If so; you are not sincere. God will regard your thoughts; for thoughts are heard in heaven. If you willingly sin in thought; if you are base and guilty there; because you think that no eye will see your thoughts; the guilt and baseness will sooner or later break into the outlets of word and deed -- from thought to wish -- from wish to purpose -- from purpose to word -- from word to act -- from act to habit -- from delight in the imagination to consent in the will -- from deed to repeated transgression; such is the genesis of sin.

- Farrar, Frederick

12.

There is a devilish mercy in the judge, if you'll implore it, that will free your life, but fetter you till death.

- William Shakespeare

13.

GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

- Ambrose Bierce

14.

Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.

- Johnson

15.

With God, what is terrible is that one never knows whether it's not just a trick of the devil.

- Anouilh, Jean

16.

Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.

- Voltaire

17.

A religion which requires persecution to sustain it is of the devil's propagation.

- Hosea Ballou

18.

He will give the devil his due.

- William Shakespeare

19.

To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.

- Bataille, Georges

20.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow men.

- Kahlil Gibran