“Evil corrupts, Bael, by promising us what we want, and telling us that it is good.”

—  David Gemmell , book Stormrider

Source: Rigante series, Stormrider, Ch. 13
Context: You think evil corrupts men by saying come with me and I will turn you into a merciless killer, and damn your soul for eternity? Who would agree to such a bargain? Evil corrupts, Bael, by promising us what we want, and telling us that it is good. Evil talks of the end justifying the means. It speaks of distant goals — aye, and of golden ages. It seduces, Bael. It does not threaten. Not at first.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Evil corrupts, Bael, by promising us what we want, and telling us that it is good." by David Gemmell?
David Gemmell photo
David Gemmell 195
British author of heroic fantasy 1948–2006

Related quotes

Patrice Lumumba photo

“We became the target of attacks because we no longer want to submit ... and reject corruption. They tried to bribe us and millions were promised to me, but I refused, I did not take a single centime.”

Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) Congolese Prime Minister, cold war leader, executed

Fighters for National Liberation: Political Profiles https://archive.org/details/fightersfornatliberation/page/138/mode/2up V.G. Khorosebal , Central Books Ltd, 1984, ISBN 0714720542, p 144. Lumumba in August 1960 from the United States.

Robert M. Pirsig photo

“What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 30
The quote is from section 258d of the dialogue Phædrus (tr. Benjamin Jowett).
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Context: A single thought begins to grow in his mind, extracted from something he read in the dialogue Phædrus. "And what is written well and what is written badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?"
What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

Scott Hahn photo

“We… sin not because we want what is evil, but because we want what isn't good enough.”

Scott Hahn (1957) American theologian

Source: Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession

Malorie Blackman photo
Philip Pullman photo
Marc Randazza photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Some dreams tell us what we wish to believe. Some dreams tell us what we fear. Some dreams are of what we know though we may not know we knew it. The rarest dream is the dream that tells us what we did not know.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Social Dreaming of the Frin in David G. Hartwell (ed.) Year's Best Fantasy 3, p. 172 (Originally published at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magazine_of_Fantasy_%26_Science_Fiction October/November 2002)

Barbara Jordan photo

“What people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise.”

Barbara Jordan (1936–1996) American politician

Commencement Address, Harvard University (16 June 1977), as cited in Let me tell you what I've learned https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0292787901: Texas Wisewomen Speak, PJ Pierce, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 16

Related topics