Motivational Quotes

Evil

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other ones invariably slink in after it.

- Gracian, Baltasar

Best Quotes about Evil

1.

The pious pretence that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.

Crowley, Aleister

2.

Evil to him who evil thinks. (Honi Soit Qui Mal Pense)

King Edward the Third

3.

It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.

Mary Renault

4.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.

Pascal, Blaise

5.

Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him. [Ecclesiasticus]

Bible

6.

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

Arendt, Hannah

7.

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

8.

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.

Bellow, Saul

9.

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.

Maistre, Joseph De

10.

There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.

Haydon, Benjamin

11.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Aurelius, Marcus

12.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

Plato

13.

My mother's obsession with the good scissors always scared me a bit. It implied that somewhere in the house there lurked: the evil scissors.

Martin, Tony

14.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

Theodore Roosevelt

15.

Some people show evil as a great racehorse shows breeding. They have the dignity of a hard chancre.

Hemingway, Ernest

16.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Edmund Burke

17.

Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.

Baudelaire, Charles

18.

All evils are equal when they are extreme.

Corneille, Pierre

19.

By bravely enduring it, an evil which cannot be avoided is overcome

Proverb

20.

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

Mae West

21.

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

Cioran, E. M.

22.

Whoever rewards evil for good, evil will not depart from their house.

Bible

23.

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.

Raine, Kathleen

24.

The evil that we know is best.

Titus Maccius Plautus

25.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

Gandhi, Mahatma

26.

Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.

Oliver Goldsmith

27.

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

Ayn Rand

28.

Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds. Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.

Evelyn Underhill

29.

Overcome evil with good. [St. Paul]]

Bible

30.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

31.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

32.

We must as second best...take the least of the evils.

Aristotle

33.

Those that are evil have not only the good against them, but also the bad.

Bischer

34.

When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.

Lerner, Max

35.

All evil is like a nightmare; the instant you stir under it, the evil is gone.

Carlyle, Thomas

36.

Evil is obvious only in retrospect.

Gloria Steinem

37.

I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.

Euripides

38.

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.

Milton, John

39.

The face of evil is always the face of total need.

Burroughs, William S.

40.

Remember only the good, the bad will never forget you.

Horton, Doug

41.

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

West, Mae

42.

Do not seek evil gains; evil gains are the equivalent of disaster.

Hesiod

43.

Evil be to him who evil thinks.

Edward II

44.

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.

Buddha

45.

Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.

Proverb, Ethiopian

46.

Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.

Erasmus, Desiderius

47.

Nothing baffles the schemes of evil people so much as the calm composure of great souls.

Mirabeau, Gabriel Riqueti

48.

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.

49.

Of two evils, it is always best to vote for the least hypocritical.

Proverb, American

50.

They that know no evil will suspect none.