“Active Evil is better than Passive Good.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
1780s, Annotations to Lavater (1788)
“Active Evil is better than Passive Good.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
1780s, Annotations to Lavater (1788)
Malcolm Azania book The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad
Source: The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (2004), Chapter 56 “At Last, the Box, Explained” (p. 320)
“God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”
Aurelius Augustinus book Enchiridion of Augustine
Enchiridion (c. 420 ), Ch. 27
“You must not grieve so heavily.
Better are good than evil omens.”
Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard
The Tale of Taleisin
Context: You must not grieve so heavily.
Better are good than evil omens.
though I am weak and small,
Spumed with Dylan's wave,
I shall be better for you
Than three hundred shares of salmon.
“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”
Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange
Source: A Clockwork Orange
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
“One good Art's better than a thousand bad.”
John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic
Fab. LVII: Of the Fox and the Cat
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)
“It is better to be a good human being than to be a bad one. It is just naturally better.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer
My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)
“One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
15 February 1788
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788-1794)