“We struggle onward, ignorant and blind,
For a result unknown and undesign’d;
Avoiding seeming ills, misunderstood,
Embracing evil as a seeming good.”
Source: Elegies, Lines 137-139, as translated by J. Banks, The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis (1856), p. 464 http://books.google.com/books?id=QqFaP-4DExEC&pg=PA464
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Theognis of Megara16
Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century … -570–-485 BCRelated quotes
“From seeming evil still educing good.”
James Thomson (poet) (1700–1748) Scottish writer (1700-1748)
Source: Hymn (1730), line 114.
William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania
Advice to his children (1699)
“Evil sometimes seems good
To a man whose mind
A god leads to destruction.”
Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian
Source: Antigone, Lines 620-3
John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra
Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 204
1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869
“This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good.”
Howard Dean (1948) American political activist
His opinion of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Remarks at a Democratic fundraiser at the home of John and Nancy Hiebert, February 25, 2005, in Lawrence, Kansas. Quoted in "Dean Roars Into Town" http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/feb/26/dean_roars_into/ by Joel Mathis, Lawrence Journal-World, February 26, 2005. Retrieved May 9, 2016.
Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time
Original: (fr) Ce n’est pas le mal qui lui donnait l’idée du plaisir, qui lui semblait agréable ; c’est le plaisir qui lui semblait malin.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)
Tzvetan Todorov (1939–2017) Bulgarian historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist
Hope and Memory: Reflections on the Twentieth Century (2003)