“Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.”

—  Xun Zi

Quoted in: Fayek S. Hourani (2012) Daily Bread for Your Mind and Soul, p. 336.

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 "Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity." by Xun Zi?
Xun Zi photo
Xun Zi13
Ancient Chinese philosopher -313–-238 BC

Related quotes

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“It is not for human judgment to dive into the heart of man, to know whether his intentions are good or evil.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Case of John Lambert and others (1793), 22 How. St. Tr. 1018.

T.S. Eliot photo

“Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Thomas Aquinas photo

“No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Original: (la) Nullum malum bona intentione factum excusatur.
Variant: Variant translation: An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention.
Source: On the Ten Commandments (c. 1273)

William Blake photo

“Active Evil is better than Passive Good.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

1780s, Annotations to Lavater (1788)

Xun Zi photo

“A questioner asks: If human nature is evil, then where do ritual and rightness come from? I reply: ritual and rightness are always created by the conscious activity of the sages.”

Xun Zi (-313–-238 BC) Ancient Chinese philosopher

Sources of Chinese Tradition (1999), vol. 1, p. 180
Human nature is evil

Thomas Aquinas photo

“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence…On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is not misbegotten, but is included in nature's intention as directed to the work of generation. Now the general intention of nature depends on God, Who is the universal Author of nature. Therefore, in producing nature, God formed not only the male but also the female.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 92, art. 1, ad 1
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

“Companies die because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations' true nature is that of a community of humans.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Source: The Living Company, 1997, p. 3

Orson Scott Card photo

“Good people can't out-think evil, 'cause evil think of things good folks can't think of. Can't enter your head what evil do.”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“Globalization is a process that encompasses the causes, course, and consequences of transnational and transcultural integration of human and non-human activities.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Pillars of Globalization, p. 13 (2006)

William H. Seward photo

“Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature.”

William H. Seward (1801–1872) American lawyer and politician

Letter to Charles F. Adams (1863), as quoted in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=xe9TAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=%22the+cause+of+the+United+States+is+the+cause+of+human%22&source=bl&ots=WHM-9fK5zZ&sig=3aspBI67n5cNTU2ARF6OaNTyCDQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIt7WJl9msxwIViDI-Ch3mpgBq#v=onepage&q=%22the%20cause%20of%20the%20United%20States%20is%20the%20cause%20of%20human%22&f=false, p. 150.

Related topics