evil

1.

Men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.

- Pascal, Blaise

2.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

- Seneca

3.

ABSOLUTE, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.

- Ambrose Bierce

4.

The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.

- Broun, Heywood

5.

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

- Augustine, St.

6.

Men fear death, as if unquestionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good.

- Mitford, William

7.

Religion and education are no match for evil without the grace of God.

- Hayden, B. R.

8.

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.

- Socrates

9.

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

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

11.

These days, the wages of sin depend on what kind of deal you make with the devil.

- Kara Vichko

12.

Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's dilemma. It's neither doing nor not doing. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation...is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew.

- Dan Millman

13.

There is no falser proverb than that devil's beatitude, "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." Say rather, "Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at least, and if it falls out true, twice also."

- Prose Idylls. 1857.

14.

Nature is not cruel, pitiless, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

- Richard Dawkins

15.

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it...

- James, William

16.

He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for who so laboreth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.

- Raleigh, Sir Walter

17.

In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry of idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.

- Mrs. Sigourney

18.

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility.

- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

19.

The rebel can never find peace. He knows what is good and, despite himself, does evil. The value which supports him is never given to him once and for all -- he must fight to uphold it, unceasingly.

- Camus, Albert

20.

Though permitted evils should not avenge themselves by any political retribution, yet avenge themselves, if unredressed, they surely will. They affect masses too large, interests too serious, not to make themselves bitterly felt some day. . . . We may choose to look on the masses in the gross as objects for statistics--and of course, where possible, for profits. There is One above who knows every thirst, and ache, and sorrow, and temptation of each slattern, and gin-drinker, and street-boy. The day will come when He will require an account of these neglects of ours--not in the gross.

- Miscellanies. 1851.