“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”

Variant: No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley94

English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, … 1797–1851

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“The proposition has… been laid down in the most general terms, "All evils are negations." Thus for man death is evil; death is his non-existence. Illness, poverty, and ignorance are evils for man; all these are privations of properties…. The destruction of other things is likewise nothing but the absence of their form. After these propositions, it must be admitted as a fact that it cannot be said of God that He directly creates evil, or He has the direct intention to produce evil; this is impossible. His works are all perfectly good. He only produces existence, and all existence is good; whilst evils are of a negative character, and cannot be acted upon.”

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“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley94

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