“If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked accountable? Nay, why do we call men wicked at all? Evil is inevitable, but is also remediable.”

Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 215

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked accountable? Nay, why do we call men wicked at all? Evil is inevitable, but i…" by Horace Mann?

Horace Mann67

American politician 1796–1859

Related quotes

“Most men are not wicked… They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“My hate is general, I detest all men;
Some because they are wicked and do evil,
Others because they tolerate the wicked,
Refusing them the active vigorous scorn
Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.”

Molière The Misanthrope

Source: The Misanthrope

“It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Volume 1, p. 181
The Prophets (1962)

“Everything is evil. I mean, everything that is, is wicked; every existing thing is an evil; everything exists for a wicked end. Existence is a wickedness and is ordained for wickedness. Evil is the end, the final purpose, of the universe…The only good is nonbeing; the only really good thing is the thing that is not, things that are not things; all things are bad.”

Giacomo Leopardi book Zibaldone

19th April 1826.
Zibaldone (1898)

“If God be in all things, as in all men, the wicked as the godly, wherein then is the state of the wicked worse than the godly? Yea, if God be in both, why have they both one title, but one wicked, another godly?”

Laurence Clarkson (1615–1667) English theologian

A Single Eye, All Light, No Darkness; or Light and Darkness One (1650)

“To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.”

Charles Baudelaire book Le Spleen de Paris

On n'est jamais excusable d'être méchant, mais il y a quelque mérite à savoir qu'on l'est; et le plus irréparable des vices est de faire le mal par bêtise.
XXVIII: "La Fausse Monnaie"
Le Spleen de Paris (1862)