„Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others.“
— Confucius Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551 - -479 BC
Quotes about Evil
A collection of quotes on the topic of evil.
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„The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places and at the wrong times; premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.“
— Donald Ervin Knuth, Literate Programming
Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.
Variant in Knuth, "Structured Programming with Goto Statements" http://pplab.snu.ac.kr/courses/adv_pl05/papers/p261-knuth.pdf. Computing Surveys 6:4 (December 1974), pp. 261–301, §1.
Knuth refers to this as "Hoare's Dictum" 15 years later in "The Errors of Tex", Software—Practice & Experience 19:7 (July 1989), pp. 607–685. However, the attribution to C. A. R. Hoare is doubtful. http://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/premature-optimization-is-the-root-of-all-evil/
All three of these papers are reprinted in Knuth, Literate Programming, 1992, Center for the Study of Language and Information ISBN 0937073806
Source: Computer Programming as an Art (1974), p. 671
„In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world.“
— Emil M. Cioran, book A Short History of Decay
A Short History of Decay (1949)
„We do not rush toward death, we flee the catastrophe of birth, survivors struggling to forget it. Fear of death is merely the projection into the future of a fear which dates back to our first moment of life. We are reluctant, of course, to treat birth as a scourge: has it not been inculcated as the sovereign good — have we not been told that the worst came at the end, not at the outset of our lives? Yet evil, the real evil, is behind, not ahead of us. What escaped Jesus did not escape Buddha: "If three things did not exist in the world, O disciples, the Perfect One would not appear in the world. …" And ahead of old age and death he places the fact of birth, source of every infirmity, every disaster.“
— Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
„It is difficult, it is impossible to believe that the Good Lord—“Our Father”—had a hand in the scandal of creation. Everything suggests that He took no part in it, that it proceeds from a god without scruples, a feculent god. Goodness does not create, lacking imagination; it takes imagination to put together a world, however botched. At the very least, there must be a mixture of good and evil in order to produce an action or a work.“
— Emil M. Cioran Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911 - 1995
The New Gods (1969)
„Selectively choosing what gets condemned and forcing people to join sides while hiding behind semantics is pure evil.“
— Markus Persson Swedish video game programmer 1979
In response to the Silence procedure phrase "qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit" (Thus, silence gives consent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to) (14 August 2017) https://twitter.com/notch/status/897158641962319878
„Definition of Good and Evil: Good is what you like. Evil is what you don't like.“
— Anton LaVey, book The Devil's Notebook
The Devil's Notebook (1992)
„Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.“
Electra, 1007.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
„Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions.“
— John Chrysostom important Early Church Father 349 - 407
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html
„I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.“
— W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939
Source: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 19–22
„In the beginning there were two primal spirits,
Twins spontaneously active,
These are the Good and the Evil, in thought, and in word, and in deed.“
— Zoroaster Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism
Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 3.
The Gathas
„It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.“
— Ovadia Yosef Israeli rabbi 1920 - 2013
5 December 2004 article on New York Times https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01E5DD1730F936A25751C1A9629C8B63
2001
„God Vishnu has complete power over souls and matter and that Vishnu saves souls entirely by his grace which is granted to those who live pure and moral lives. Evil souls are predestined to eternal damnation and should of mediocre quality will transmigrate eternally.“
— Madhvacharya Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school 1199 - 1278
Quoted from [Martha Bush Ashton, Martha Bush Ashton-Sikora, Bruce Christie, Yakṣagāna, a Dance Drama of India, 23, http://books.google.com/books?id=ug3DNI-1xwUC&pg=PA23, 1977, Abhinav Publications, 23–].
„Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth.“
— Fulton J. Sheen Catholic bishop and television presenter 1895 - 1979
"A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)
„The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.“
— T. H. White, book The Book of Merlyn
The Book of Merlyn (1977)