Quotes about Evil
page 20

“Since God could have created a freedom in which there could be no evil (i. e., a state when men were happy and free and certain not to sin), it follows that He wished evil to exist. But evil offends Him. A commonplace case of masochism.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Men, God, Happiness, Freedom

“Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually, genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole, of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made, not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Men, War, World, Peace

“The general decay of those manly and spirited exercises, which formerly were practiced in the vicinity of the metropolis has not arisen from any want of inclination in the people, but from the want of places proper for the purpose: such as in times past had been allotted to them are now covered with buildings, or shut up by enclosures, so that, if it were not for skittles, dutch-pins, four-corners, and the like pastimes, they would have no amusements for the exercise of the body; and these amusements are only to be met with in places belonging to common drinking-houses, for which reason their play is seldom productive of much benefit, but more frequently becomes the prelude to drunkenness and debauchery. This evil has been increasing for a long series of years; and honest Stow laments the retrenchments of the grounds appropriated for martial pastimes which had begun to take place in his day.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. lxii
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Exercise

People, Exercises, Drink, Time

“The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and his capacity to choose. Surely this is infinitely preferable to the Socialist-statist philosophy which sets up a centralised economic system to which the individual must conform, which subjugates him, directs him and denies him the right to free choice. Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Zurich Economic Society “The New Renaissance” (14 March 1977) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103336 Leader of the Opposition

World, Success

“There is no evil in human affairs that has not some good mingled with it.”

Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) Italian writer, historian and politician

Non è male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene.
Storia d' Italia (1537-1540)

“Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. challenged the underlying premise of prevailing Civil War scholarship. The South, he pointed out, had shown no evidence of a willingness to end slavery; indeed, over time it had become ever more hysterical in its defense. With one eye firmly on the recent past, Schlesinger insisted that a society closed in support of evil could not be appeased, and if it was worth a war to destroy Nazism, surely it was worth one to eradicate slavery. But not until the 1960s, under the impact of the civil rights revolution, did historians en masse repudiate a half-century of Civil War scholarship, concluding that the war resulted from an irreconcilable conflict between two fundamentally different societies, one resting on slavery, the other on free labor. Historians pushed Emancipation to the center of their account of the Civil War, and it has remained there ever since.”

Eric Foner (1943) American historian

"The Civil War in 'Postracial' America" https://web.archive.org/web/20111001073757/http://ericfoner.com/articles/101011nation.html (10 October 2011), The Nation 2010s

War, Support, Time, Past

“The doctrines held by the early Fathers of the Church on the nature of property are perfectly uniform. They almost all admit that wealth is the fruit of usurpation, and, considering the rich man as holding the patrimony of the poor, maintain that riches should only serve to relieve the indigent; to refuse to assist the poor is, consequently, worse than to rob the rich. According to the fathers, all was in common in the beginning: the distinctions mine and thine, in other words, individual property, came with the spirit of evil.”

Francesco Saverio Nitti (1868–1953) Italian economist and political figure

Source: Catholic Socialism (1895), pp. 65-66 https://books.google.com/books?id=er0J90SXSPkC&pg=PA65

Nature, Wealth

“In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

As quoted in Rutherford B. Hayes, and His America (1954) by Harry Barnard. p. 481

Appearance

“The Dodgson family worshipped the God of Love, who showed his stern face only in the presence of evil.”

Florence Becker Lennon

Page 30
The Life of Lewis Carroll (1962)

Love, God, Family

“These Peripatetics accordingly made careful investigations into the nature of all things, so as to determine which I should be avoided as evil, discounted as useless, sought after as good, or preferred as better, and finally which are called "good" or "bad" according to circumstances. There thus developed two branches of philosophy, natural and moral, which are also called ethics and physics. But, through lack of scientific skill in argumentative reasoning, many absurdities were concluded. Thus Epicurus would have the world originate from atoms and a void, and would dispense with God as its author; whereas the Stoics asserted that matter is coeternal with God, and held that all sins are equally grave. p. 76”

John of Salisbury English philosopher and theologian

The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury (1159)

God, World, Nature

“Nobody had made this wilderness, and there was no evil in it and no good; it simply was.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Eye of the Heron

Source: The Eye of the Heron (1978), Chapter 11 (p. 162)

“A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Variant: A man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good.
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 15; translated by W. K. Marriot

““It would take an entire nation a thousand years to build something this vast. No monument so huge can be a good thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Only a very great evil could remain so single of purpose, so uncaring of cost, as to create something so ultimately useless.””

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 103 (p. 650)

Understanding

“Abu Hurayra reported the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Race to good actions as fast as you can. What are you waiting for except delayed poverty, oppressive wealth, debilitating illness, dottering senility, a swift death or the Dajjal? Or are you waiting for an unseen evil, or the Last Hour? The Last Hour will be most bitter and terrible."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 578
Sunni Hadith

Death, Peace, Waiting, Wealth

“It is much more trying to be continually tormented by evil men than by devils.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

Men

“If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Disciple and Unbelievers, p. 185.

Motivation, Heart

“To be effective, morality has to be reasoned (or worked out). To want ("vouloir", Fr.) to repress evil only by coercion, and to obtain morality by a sort of training with the help of constraint, without motivating it from within, is to make it an unnatural result, devoided of lastind value.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 59.

Motivation, Help, Training

“Since it seems to be the nature of man that he wants to go to hell as quickly as possible, it is not surprising that effective base rhetoricians can greatly accelerate this process for millions. … Many individuals try to drive men into slavery, as if they were cattle, but only a few succeed. These we hail as “great historical figures.” I submit that we cannot judge the noble rhetorician by this standard. Since he urges men to be better than they are, the noble rhetorician cannot possibly succeed in changing those who prefer to remain as they are or become evil. Indeed, because his task is to bring men to themselves, not to him, the noble rhetorician ought not to be judged by his manifest effect on others at all. Rather, he ought to be judged by the clarity and steadfastness with which he proclaims his counsel. Should not a single person heed his advice, the noble rhetorician would still have to be judged successful in proportion as he succeeds in perfecting his own language. … In the final analysis, what Karl Kraus sought was to purify himself by purifying his own language. He achieved his goal. He dies a semantic saint in a semantically satanic society.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: Anti-Freud (1990), pp. 56-57.

Men, Hell, Nature, Change

“It is peculiar to “ressentiment criticism” that it does not seriously desire that its demands be fulfilled. It does not want to cure the evil. The evil is merely the pretext for the criticism.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 51

“I looked down at her shriveled corpse. It lay across that of her brother. One had represented the evil of the world, the other the good. Yet both had been defeated by pride, by ambition, by a promise of immortality.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 3, Chapter 4 (p. 669)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

World

“If we can’t wake up to the fact that deep down inside we are good, then we deserve to remain asleep dreaming we are evil.”

Lon Milo DuQuette (1948) American occult writer

Source: The Key to Solomon's Key (2006), Chapter 13

Dreams

“The prevalence of evil is the darkest and most frightening mystery of the universe.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Cardinal Luca Rossini in Ch. 8
Eminence (1998)

Universe

“The soul must accept guilt in order to destroy existing evil, lest it incur the greater guilt of idyllic withdrawal, of seeming to be good by putting up with wrong.”

Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher

Aber es steht doch in der Regel so, daß die Seele schuldig werden muß, um das schlecht Bestehende zu vernichten, um nicht durch idyllischen Rückzug, scheingute Duldung des Unrechts noch schuldiger zu werden.
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 36

Soul

“These men of the cloth sought reflected glory in glorifying the inhumanity of their sinful flock of hostage takers; but in their uncompassionate hearts, could not find the will to spare a moment to cast a comforting glance at the hapless and innocent hostages who languished but a few yards away in the parliamentary complex. They joined together to desecrate the national motto: Fear God and Honour the Chief; they violated the solemn promise. And their political outriders, far and wide, high and low, military and civilian, hastened to proclaim their support for the newly invented “cause” as defined by army officer Sitiveni Rabuka (1987) and failed businessman George Speight (2000), while occasionally proclaiming not to support the means, but had not the courage to condemn and resist their evil enterprise.”

Vijay R. Singh (1931–2006) Fijian politician

Speaking Out (2006)

Men, God, Fear, Courage

“Money talk tends to be confusing. When people talk money, they usually think “wealth”, “costs”, “profit”, “income”, “gold”, “greed”, “time” (as in “time is money”), or something like that. In everyday discourse money symbolises capitalism, for better or worse: money as the life or evil force of the economy. As sings to us in the classical musical Cabaret: “Money makes the world go round… ”. The tune resonates when people exclaim “money” in response to the question what they are after in life, or when they say that everything people do ultimately revolves around money. All this talk is clear enough. The confusion enters when we observe the very same people who are so enthused about money, stubbornly suppress any reference to money when it comes to goods like the love for their partner, parents and children, friendship, science (truth!) and art (beauty!).”

Arjo Klamer (1953) Dutch columnist, economist and politician

Arjo Klamer, and Harry van Dalen. "The double-sidedness of money." Etnofoor 13.2 (2000): 89-103.

Love, Life, Money, Friendship

“men's hearts ought not to be set against one another; but set with one another, and all against the Evil Thing only.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Men, Heart

“There is, let me assure you, nothing in nature more egocentrical than the embattled democracy. It soon becomes the victim of its own war propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value which distorts everything else. Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side, on the other hand, is the center of all virtue. The contest comes to be viewed as having a final, apocalyptic quality. If we lose, all is lost; life will no longer be worth living; there will be nothing to be salvaged. If we win, then everything will be possible; all our problems will become soluble; the one great source of evil--our enemy--will have been crushed; the forces of good will then sweep forward unimpeded; all worthy aspirations will be satisfied.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

From Russia and the West under Lenin by George Kennan (1960)

Life, War, Democracy, Nature

“Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Cato the Elder
Roman Apophthegms

Men, Age

“Thank you all very much for your hospitality. We've just had a wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our T. V. screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith, and it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that. The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself. 'In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Islam is Peace (September 2001)

People, World, Faith, Quotes

“Third, as has often been noted, the pronouncements of the ultra-Darwinists can shake with a religious fervour. Their texts ring with high-minded rhetoric and dire warnings—not least of the unmitigated evils of religion—all to reveal the path of simplicity and straight thinking.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

Source: Life's Solution (2003), p. 315.

Religion, Thinking

“I have no doubt that in heaven the angels will regard the blessed as a necessary evil.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Diary entry for August 9, 1985, p. 290.
Writing Home (1994)

Angels

“To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (6 December 2001)

Love, People, Peace

“Of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently — though as little of one as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World (1932), Ch. 1

Happiness, Intelligence, Idea

“"From time to time I have the feeling that certain instincts [urges? involuntary impulses? ] are being annihilated within me, which have hitherto seemed good and perfect: yet as soon as they are destroyed I perceive how evil and imperfect they were." (Catherine of Genoa). This strikes me as very important, for it shows that the judgment of conscience can change, and precisely in someone whose conscience must already have been particularly highly developed, sensitive and illuminated.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

Feeling, Change, Time, Perfection

“It has fallen upon me, now and again in my sojourns through the world, to ease various evil men of their lives…”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"The Castle of the Devil" (1968)

Men, World

“In times of political confusion, and under an arbitrary government, many will prefer to keep their capital inactive, concealed, and unproductive, either of profit or gratification, rather than run the risk of its display. This latter evil is never felt under a good government.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter I, note 2

Time

“I’m trying to decide whether we can afford to be merciful. The Arbai were merciful, but when confronted with evil, mercy becomes an evil.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 358)

“Gandhi had been right. There was only one way to behave, even if it seemed, in the short term, against one’s self-interest. Surely it was in one’s self-interest in the long term to exhibit generosity, humanity, kindness and a sense of justice to one’s fellow men. It was cynicism of Beesley’s kind which had, after all, led to the threatened extinction of the whole human race. There could be no such thing s a “righteous” war, for war was by its very nature an act of injustice against the individual, but there could be such a thing as an “unrighteous” war—an evil war, a war begun by men who were utterly corrupt, both morally and intellectually. I had begun to think that it was a definition of those who would make war—that whatever motives they claimed, whatever ideals they promoted, whatever “threat” they referred to, they could not be excused—because of their actions they could only be of a degenerate and immoral character.”

Michael Moorcock book The Land Leviathan

Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Triumphant Beast” (p. 262)
The Land Leviathan (1974)

Men, War, Justice, Way

“The fact is, we're looking for a very small number of very evil needles in a very large haystack, which is the city of London.”

Charles Clarke (1950) British Labour Party politician

Home Secretary Charles Clarke, BBC radio, July 2005 following the London bombings

“Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Act I, Scene 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=sZloXETcr24C&q=%22Don't+let+us+make+imaginary+evils+when+you+know+we+have+so+many+real+ones+to+encounter%22&pg=PA21#v=onepage. The Good-Natured Man (1768)

“It was her own evil assumptions that had done her in. She hadn’t even considered the third possible explanation for his strange behavior—that he was a perfectly nice man, without an ounce of guile, just trying to be helpful. People helped people in California. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d only been in New York a few weeks, and already she was turning hard and suspicious.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 2, “An Unexpected Gift” (p. 33)

People, Behavior, Help

“But Joenes then made a speech which was a beauty, and I cannot recall it word for word, but the idea was that laws are made by man and thus must partake of the evil nature of man, and that true morality lies in following the true dictates of the illuminated soul.
“A Commie, huh?””

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

said the lead cop.
Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 2 “Lum’s Meeting With Lety Barrera Joenes” (p. 18)

Law, Beauty, Soul, Idea

“The secret of joy is: To know the world and its evil powers … and still preserve the hope.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Joy: Share it! p.54.
Joy: Share it! (2017)

Secret, World, Hope, Joy

“Camera-phones are like nuclear power plants: bad people will turn them into evil, good people will put them to good use.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

NPR Interview January 2007, regarding current uses of the camera phone http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/programs/2007/01/06/father_of_the_camera.html.

People

“One such was that braggart Robert, notorious for his power-lust, born in Normandy, but nursed and nourished by manifold Evil.”

Anna Comnena book Alexiad

Of the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard
The Alexiad, Book 1

“Good and evil keep very exact accounts… and the face of every man is their ledger.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Ch. 5 : Requirements of Bread and Butter http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/CABELL/ch05.htm Jurgen (1919)

“You can’t expect anything. In the Evil Dead movies you can only expect the unexpected. These were never designed to be a franchise. These were a very slow growing series of movies and the TV show was a natural outgrowth; it made more sense to do a TV show than a 75-million-dollar movie, for example. It’s dictated by economics and look, a lot of the difference between Army Of Darkness and now is that Army Of Darkness flopped, which most people forget; the series was dead after that. It took until the late nineties to rekindle it on DVD, so we’re actually really glad to celebrate the release of the Ash Vs Evil Dead DVD so DVD collectors can add it to the rest of the series.”

Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell interview: Ash Vs Evil Dead https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/bruce-campbell/43298/bruce-campbell-interview-ash-vs-evil-dead (September 5, 2016)

People, Nature, Sense, Dead

“Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

"Nonmoral Nature", pp. 42–43
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)

People, World, Failure, Nature

“Well I'm afraid it simply does, um, [the Catholic Church] does condemn [homosexuality], yes, it calls it a - the official word is disorder, but it was refined by the current Pontiff, Ratzinger, who called it a 'moral evil'. But on the other hand we must remember, as the point that was made is that the church is very loose on moral evils because, although they try to accuse people like me who believe in the empiricism and the enlightenment of somehow what they call moral relativism, as if it's some appalling sin where what it actually means is thought, um, they um, they for example thought that slavery was perfectly fine… absolutely okay, and then they didn't, and what is the point of the Catholic Church if it says 'oh well we couldn't know better because nobody else did?”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

(To the affirmative team) Then what are you for?!
Answering a question during the Intelligence² debate: "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world", November 7th 2009
2000s

People

“My administration has a job to do and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

As quoted in " "Bush vows to rid the world of 'evil-doers" at CNN http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism/ (16 September 2001) 2000s, 2001

World

“Some people like to go out dancing
Other people they have to work
There's even some evil mothers
They'll tell you that everything is just dirt
That women never really faint
Or that villians always blink their eyes
Or that children are the only ones who blush
And that life is just to die

But anyone who ever had a heart
They wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who ever played a part
They wouldn't turn around and hate it”

Lou Reed (1942–2013) American musician

Lyrics

Life, Women, Hate, Children

“It is useless to tell the missionaries that Hindu sâdhanâ has nothing to do with buying a piece of land, building some stylised houses on it, exhibiting pretentious signboards, putting on a particular type of dress, and performing certain rituals in a particular way. Hindu sâdhanâ has been and remains a far deeper and difficult undertaking. It means being busy with one's own self rather than with saving others. It means clearing the dirt and dross within one's own self rather than calling on others to swear by a totem trotted out as the only saviour. It has no place for abominable superstitions like the atoning death of a so-called chirst. Above all, it is not consistent with double-talk-harbouring one motive in the heart and mouthing another. A counterfeit must remain a counterfeit, howsoever loudly and lavishly advertised. It is a sacrilege that those who are out to cheat and deceive should use the word "sâdhanâ" for their evil exercise.”

Sita Ram Goel book Catholic Ashrams

Catholic Ashrams (1994)

Death, Way, Exercises, Motivation

“Probably the respect or stigma attaching to particular classes of actions arose from the fact that these classes of actions were—or were thought to be—beneficial or injurious to the society of the time; but it is also clear that this good or bad name once created clings to the action long after the action has ceased in the course of social progress to be beneficial in the one case, or injurious in the other; and indeed long after the thinkers of the race have discovered the discrepancy. And so in a short time arises a great confusion in the popular mind between what is really good or evil for the race and what is reputed to be so—the bolder spirits who try to separate the two having to atone for this confusion by their own martyrdom.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

Time

“After all, sympathy is genius. A man who really sympathizes with another understands him. A man who sympathizes with a religion, instantly sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathizes with the right, sees the evil that a creed contains.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Religion, Understanding

“A young plant should always be protected against goats and cows and the mischief of little urchins, by means of a fence. But when it becomes a big tree, a flock of goats or a herd of cows can freely find shelter under its spreading boughs and fill their stomachs with their leaves. So when your faith is yet in its infancy, you should protect it from the evil influences of bad company. But when you grow strong in faith, no worldliness or evil inclination will dare approach your holy presence; and many who are wicked will become godly through their holy contact with you.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 387

Faith, Tree, Strong

“If you are engaged in doing good deeds and go on doing good acts, you will have good sleep, good appetite and bad thoughts will not cross your mind. Otherwise, you will always be criticizing others. In inaction, your minds will always be engaged in thinking critically of others. Karma – activity – is the only thing which can drive out all evils.”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

Karma yoga
Source: The Teachings of Babaji, 17 November 1983.

Thinking, Sleep

“In what other world is myth so harmless? Great battles kill and maim; great homers and no-hitters are pure joy or deep tragedy without practical consequence […]. Life is inherently ambiguous; baseball games pit pure good against abject evil. Even Saddam Hussein must have committed one act of kindness in his life, but what iota of good could possibly be said for aluminum bats or the designated hitter rule?”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Baseball and the Two Faces of Janus", p. 272; originally published as "The Virtues of Nakedness" in The New York Review of Books (1990-10-11)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

Life, World, Game, Joy

“The whole secret of the campaigns unleashed against Spain can be explained in two words: Masonry and Communism… we have to extirpate these two evils from our land.”

Francisco Franco (1892–1975) Spanish general and dictator

Writing under the alias Jakin Boor in the journal Arriba in an article, "Masonry and Communism" (14 December 1946), as quoted in Franco: A Biography by Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúạ, p. 71

Secret, Communication

“Were there no lust of gain none would be evil.”

Diphilus Athenian poet of New Comedy

Fragment 14
Fabulae Incertae

“First of all, no one can accuse me, Ayad Jamal Aldin, of secatarianism, because I support a secular regime that fully separates religion and the state. […] I believe that my freedom as a Shia and as a religious person will never be complete unless I preserve the freedom of the Sunni, the Christian, the Jew, the Sabai and the Yazidi. We will not be able to preserve the freedom of the mosque unless we preserve the freedom of entertainment clubs. […] The curricula - both the modern ones, in some Arab and Islamic countries, and the books of jurisprudence and heritage - have many flaws that must be fixed once and for all. There are rulings about Ahl al-Dhimma - even if, Allah be praised, no current regime can enforce these rulings. However, just for the sake of amusement and diversion, I recommend that the viewers read the books of jurisprudence, and see how Ahl al-Dhimma are treated. I especially recommend this to people with a lust for Arab and Islamic history, who claim that our history is a source of pride, and that others were treated with kindness and love - especially Christians and Jews. Among these rulings, a Dhimmi must wear a belt, so he would be identifiable. Moreover, it is recommended that he be forced to the narrowest paths, and there are even jurisprudents who say that it is recommended to slap a Christian on the back of his neck so he would feel humiliated and degraded. This is how we harass him and then invite him to join Islam. I can swear that the Prophet Muhammad is innocent of such inhuman jurisprudence. I challenge anyone among the people with a lust for history to talk candidly to the West, to the advocates of human rights, and tell them that our heritage has such evils and flaws. We are a nation of blackout and darkness. We cannot live in the light of day. […] We do not hold ourselves accountable. This is why America came to demand that the Arabs be accountable. We must have more self-confidence and be accountable before others hold us accountable. We must discipline ourselves before the Americans and English discipline us. We must maintain human rights, which we have neglected for 1,300 or 1,400 years, to this day - until the arrival of the Americans, the Christians, the English, the Zionists, the Crusaders - call them what you will. They came to teach you, the followers of Muhammad, how to respect human rights.”

Iyad Jamal Al-Din (1961) Iraqi politician

Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: The Arabs Want Tyrannical Regimes, in Line with Their Backward Culture, LBC TV, July 31, 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ZKffu6Wsg,

Love, People, Books, Religion

“The whole evil of commercial prostitution arises out of the domination of Man in matters of sex. Better indeed were a Saturnalia of free men and women than the spectacle which as it is our great cities present at night. Here in sex, the women's instincts are, as a rule, so clean, so direct, so well-rooted in the needs of the race, that except for man's domination they would scarcely have suffered this perversion.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

Love's Coming of Age (1896)

Women, Men, Sex, Suffering

“The employment of the poor in roads and public works, and a tendency among landlords and persons of property to build, to improve and beautify their grounds, and to employ workmen and menial servants, are the means most within our power and most directly calculated to remedy the evils arising from that disturbance in the balance of produce and consumption.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 430
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

Personality

“Christ that doeth Good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth, — with all the sweet Keeping by Love, that endlessly followeth.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 59

Love, Christ

“Today, while celebrating the jihad victory, we once again invite those who have sided with aliens because of seduction against their nation, to give up sedition and evil and join peaceful life.”

Hamid Karzai (1957) President of Afghanistan

Karzai offers peace, Taliban free Frenchwoman http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSSP14081620070428?pageNumber=2 Apr 28, 2007 Message to Taliban

Life, Peace, Victory

“Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.”

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) British writer and philosopher

The French Revolution, Bk. V, ch. 4 (1794)

“The Universalists think they are very charitable. Why? Because they send all to heaven, whether they are good or evil, saints or sinners. Murderers, drunkards, and all classes of society are to dwell together in heaven. And what a heaven it would be!—Methodists contending against Baptists, and Baptists against Methodists, Presbyterians against Quakers, Roman Catholics against Protestants, and Nothingarians against Sectarians, and Sectarians against Nothingarians; and then add to the whole catalogue of contending sects drunkards, blasphemers, whoremongers, murderers, and every species of wicked beings, all jumbled up together. Oh, what a happy place! Brother Kimball says—"And all of them with a revolver and bowie knife at their sides."”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 7:88 (Aug. 28, 1859).
Who goes to heaven

Happiness, Thinking

“The simple fact is that Chairman Mao was a pretty perceptive political thinker. You can deplore what he did in China and still realize that not everything he wrote was the sheer embodiment of evil. […] Is this really how you want to start judging politicians -- by their favorite philosophers? […] Actually thinking about issues has gone way out of style on the right. It's much easier to march in lockstep with populist goons like Glenn Beck. […] It's appalling that so many LGF readers are buying into this insanity. What's wrong with you people?”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

October 16, 2009 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34925_Video-_John_McCain_Quotes_Chairman_Mao/comments/

People, Way, Thinking

“Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody's got to pay for them so they're a necessary evil.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.woopidoo.com/business_quotes/authors/michael-bloomberg-quotes.htm
Taxes

“"I have often wished in vain," said she, "for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it."
"That," replied I, "is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us."”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. VII : The Excursion; Helen and Gilbert

Life, Idea

“Leona Helmsley is a truly evil human being. She treated employees worse than any human being I've ever witnessed and I've dealt with some of the toughest human beings alive.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

"Donald Trump: Playboy interview" , Playboy magazine, March 1990. http://www.popeater.com/2009/09/30/donald-trump-insults/ Helmsley retorted "I can't wait to read Trump's new book, especially chapter eleven!". At the time, Trump's casino holdings were being reorganized to avoid bankruptcy. "Leona Helmsley: Playboy interview" , Playboy magazine, November 1990. http://www.glennplaskin.com/leona.pdf 1990s

“Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent… If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Articles, 10 Things to Celebrate: Why I'm an Anti-Anti-American (June 2003)

World, Home, History, Problem

“More painful to me are the thoughts of annihilation than death. If I have no expectation of seeing my father, mother, brothers, sisters and friends again, my heart would burst in a moment, and I should go down to my grave. The expectation of seeing my friends in the morning of the resurrection cheers my soul and makes me bear up against the evils of life. It is like their taking a long journey, and on their return we meet them with increased joy.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 5:362 (16 April 1843)
1840s

Life, Death, Pain, Soul

“Jason Dorrant found it hard to believe that Alicia Bartlett was dead. Not only dead but murdered. Attacked and hit hard enough to kill her. He could not imagine anyone bad enough, evil enough, to do something like that. Especially to a nice little kid like Alicia.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 22

Imagination, Dead

“My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

On the Vice-Presidency of the United States, in a letter to Abigail Adams (19 December 1793).
1790s

Wisdom, Fate, Imagination, Country

“Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.”

Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book V : The High King (1968), Chapter 21

“"I have made my choice, Hori. I will share my life with you for good or evil, until death comes…" With his arms round her, with the sudden new sweetness of his face against hers, she was filled with an exultant richness of living.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

(1945)

Life, Death

“The pain was maddening. You should pray to God when you're dying, if you can pray when you're in agony. In my dream I didn't pray to God, I thought of Roger and how dearly I loved him. The pain of those wicked flames was not half so bad as the pain I felt when I knew he was dead. I felt suddenly glad to be dying. I didn't know when you were burnt to death you'd bleed. I thought the blood would all dry up in the terrible heat. But I was bleeding heavily. The blood was dripping and hissing in the flames. I wished I had enough blood to put the flames out. The worst part was my eyes. I hate the thought of gong blind. It's bad enough when I'm awake but in dreams you can't shake the thoughts away. They remain. In this dream I was going blind. I tried to close my eyelids but I couldn't. They must have been burnt off, and now those flames were going to pluck my eyes out with their evil fingers. I didn't want to go blind. The flames weren't so cruel after all. They began to feel cold. Icy cold. It occurred to me that I wasn't burning to death but freezing to death.”

Arthur Guirdham (1905–1992) British physician, psychiatrist and writer

Source: The Cathars and Reincarnation (1970), p. 89

Love, Death, God, Pain

“Through our own folly and refusal to face realities and deal with evil tendencies while they were yet controllable, we have allowed brutal and intolerant forces to gain almost unchallenged supremacy in Europe and have placed ourselves in a position of weakness and peril, the like of which our history does not record for two and a half centuries.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the New Commonwealth Society (15 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 764
The 1930s

History, Reality

“…I have received your weighty letter…
According to whatever this recluse (meaning himself) has learnt (from the occult world), Ahmad Shah Abdali will come again for putting down the enemies. When this sacred promise is fulfilled, he will most probably stay here, and dedicate his life to the last to (the welfare of) this land. In spite of the crimes that abound and the evils that have multiplied, the work is proceeding according to plan. The reason for this most probably is that Allah wants to destroy the power of his enemies.”

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762) Indian muslim scholar

To Shykh Muhammad Ashiq Translated from the Urdu version of K.A. Nizami, Shãh Walîullah Dehlvî ke Siyãsî Maktûbãt, Second Edition, Delhi, 1969, pp. 116-17.
From his letters

Life, World

“Keep clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. There are family boards where a constant process of depreciating, assigning motives, and cutting up character, goes forward. They are not pleasant places. One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fragrant with gentleness and charity.”

John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 214.

God, Family, Motivation, Personality

“I saw and understood full surely that in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall: which Will is so good that it may never will evil, but evermore continually it willeth good; and worketh good in the sight of God.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 53
Context: In this that I have now told was my desire in part answered, and my great difficulty some deal eased, by the lovely, gracious Shewing of our good Lord. In which Shewing I saw and understood full surely that in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall: which Will is so good that it may never will evil, but evermore continually it willeth good; and worketh good in the sight of God.

God, Soul

“Even Hitler didn't wake up going, "let me do the most evil thing I can do today." I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was "good." Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. … I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I'm looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic.”

Will Smith (1968) American actor, film producer and rapper

As quoted in "Will Smith : My Work Ethic Will Make Me A Legend" by Siobhan Synnot in Daily Record (22 December 2007) http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity-interviews/2007/12/22/will-smith-my-work-ethic-will-make-me-a-legend-86908-20262460/ This was reported in various new stories http://www.volokh.com/posts/chain_1198541498.shtml as if Smith had declared that "Adolf Hitler was essentially a good person." Smith responded to such misinterpretations in further statements: It is an awful and disgusting lie. It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. … Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous, vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet. "Will Smith Explains Hitler Quote" by Karen Salkin in People (26 December 2007) http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20168278,00.html; Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League accepting Smith's clarifications stated: "If anything, this episode serves as a reminder of the power of words, and how words can be twisted by those with hate and bigotry in their hearts to suit their own world view."

People, Hope, Thinking

“When I was a child the boys of the town never came near me except to make fun of me. I was almost always alone. Sometimes, finding me by chance among them, they hurled themselves against me, and not only with words. One day – and while he told me this his great eyes shone with an inner light - … they started to throw stones at me with more violence than usual, with the evilness which is found among children and the weak. I lost patience, and grabbing stones I too started to defend myself with such energy that my attackers were put to flight. Mario, I succeeded in beating them: I terrified them to such an extent that from that day they respected me and no longer annoyed me. I ran to my mother … and told her of my first victorious battle: she kissed me tenderly and it was the best prize that I could have wanted.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

Gramsci cited in Garuglieri's Garuglieri, 'Ricordo di Gramsci.' Societa, 691-701., 1946, p. 700.

Children, Boy, Kiss, Light

“Some few intense enjoyments are given us in life; among them all, perhaps, there is none with so deep a charm as to sit by the side of those we love, and watch them sleeping. Sleep is so innocent, so peaceful in its mystery and its helplessness; and sitting there we can fancy ourselves the guardian angels holding off the thousand evils imagination paints for ever hanging over what is most precious, most dear to us. The long deep-drawn breathing; the smile we love to hope is called up over the features by our own presence in the heart; there are no moments in life we would exchange for the few we have spent by the side of these.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Arthur's commentary
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Love, Life, Peace, Smile

“Professor Bell, in his tortured efforts to sound fair and impersonal, arrives at an aesthetic principle too edifying for Art to bear. He says in effect that you can explore evil, drawing "on the tap roots of the demonic," but you may not approve it. But when you draw on those tap roots, who knows what you will find? Writers just back from their season in hell are likely to be covered in goat blood and tend to rave. The moralists can sort out the evidence later. But the writer with the correct attitude could not have entered hell in the first place.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Honoring Ezra Pound" (1972), p. 59
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

Art, Hell, Effort, Drawing

“By any precise definition, Washington is a city of advanced depravity. There one meets and dines with the truly great killers of the age, but only the quirkily fastidious are offended, for the killers are urbane and learned gentlemen who discuss their work with wit and charm and know which tool to use on the escargots.
On New York's East Side one occasionally meets a person so palpably evil as to be fascinatingly irresistible. There is a smell of power and danger on these people, and one may be horrified, exhilarated, disgusted or mesmerized by the awful possibilities they suggest, but never simply depressed.
Depression comes in the presence of depravity that makes no pretense about itself, a kind of depravity that says, "You and I, we are base, ugly, tasteless, cruel and beastly; let's admit it and have a good wallow."
That is how Times Square speaks. And not only Times Square. Few cities in the country lack the same amenities. Pornography, prostitution, massage parlors, hard-core movies, narcotics dealers — all seem to be inescapable and permanent results of an enlightened view of liberty which has expanded the American's right to choose his own method of shaping a life.
Granted such freedom, it was probably inevitable that many of us would yield to the worst instincts, and many do, and not only in New York. Most cities, however, are able to keep the evidence out of the center of town. Under a rock, as it were. In New York, a concatenation of economics, shifting real estate values and subway lines has worked to turn the rock over and put the show on display in the middle of town.
What used to be called "The Crossroads of the World" is now a sprawling testament to the dreariness which liberty can produce when it permits people with no taste whatever to enjoy the same right to depravity as the elegant classes.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Cheesy" (p.231)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Life, People, Age, World

“It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others’ expense.”

Anton Chekhov book My Life

My Life (1896)

Life

“The Mother of the universe is the Mother of all. From Her have come out both good and evil.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[In the Company of the Holy Mother, 115]

Universe

“Ron Paul: …you have to develop the transition, and eventually the next step would be to prohibit the Fed from monetizing debt. This is the real evil. The politicians spend for war, welfare, and they don't have to do it responsibly.
Question: When you say monetize the debt, you mean they would only be able to spend the cash that they had on hand. They couldn't write any cheques for which they don't have in their account any money?
Ron Paul: That's right. And that is the key to it. Because when the Fed comes along, and there's starvation for capital and liquidity, and politicians are spending too much, the Fed can create 20, 30, 50 billion dollars in a day, just like they did trying to bail out this housing bubble crash. So they create money out of thin air endlessly, eventually that has to stop because that drives the value of the dollar down.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Fox Business Network, October 16, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXfDHXpP87o 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, War, Question, Housing

“Men frequently think that the evils in the world are more numerous than the good things; many sayings and songs of the nations dwell on this idea. …Not only common people make this mistake, but even many who think they are wise.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

Men, People, World, Idea

“I feel, as time goes on, not that the war has produced fewer evils than I feared at the time, for the conviction grows on me that the evils are unmeasured. As year succeeds year we shall more and more see how great was the calamity, how inexplicable the crime which brought that war on humanity. There was one bright side to it. The horrors of that war did at least persuade mankind that some great effort must be made to prevent its repetition. Those who with the facile scepticism or easy cynicism of the arm-chair deride the efforts—humble, imperfect, but honest which are being made all the world over to render the repetition of those horrors impossible must be careful that they do not make themselves shares in the great crime from which we have already so bitterly suffered.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Speech (1921), quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 230.

War, World, Fear, Feeling

“To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods.”

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) French philosopher

A Religion for Adults (1957)

God

“I've loved not being looked at so much since dyeing my hair dark for my part in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. With my normal blondey- brown colour, I get stared at so much, so I feel quieter, more low- key. It's like being undercover, as even friends of mine haven't recognised me. It was quite difficult to get used to. I would see a picture of someone blonde in a Polaroid or shop window and think: "Don't I look brilliant?" But then it wouldn't be me. But it does mean that I can wear brighter colours, as well as brighter lipsticks than usual. I've just done a shoot where I was wearing bright red lipstick - although that did feel a bit Eighties and weird, as if I were a Robert Palmer extra.”

Sienna Guillory (1975) British actress

How do I look? Sienna Guillory Actress, age 28 Article http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040131/ai_n9686748 The London Independent. January 21, 2004.

Love, Feeling, Thinking, Parting

“Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Prologue
Jacques le Fataliste (1796)

“I never revolted in vain, as a rebel or as a tyrant, but I rose seeking reformation for the nation of my grandfather Muhammad. I intend to enjoin good and forbid evil, to act according to the traditions of my grandfather, and my father ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.44, p. 329
Regarding the Advent of Karbalā

“When we recognize the rod of a father, should we not show ourselves docile children rather than rebelliously desperate men who have been hardened in their evil doings?”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 56.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Men, Children

“This is the new imperialism, and I am against the new imperialism. It is not our job to go throwing our forces around the world and saying 'This is an evil man and so on.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Remarks on the Gulf War on ITV, On the Record (3 February 1991), quoted in The Times (4 February 1991), p. 5.
Post-Prime Ministerial

World

“Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

No. 16.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)

“Seek after the good, and with much toil shall ye find it; the evil turns up of itself without your seeking it.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

“Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed, such a representation of the disappointments of fortune? And I, as if she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party; for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Quem ouviu dizer que em tão pequeno teatro como o de um pobre leito, quizesse a fortuna representar tão grandes desventuras? E eu, como se elas não bastassem, me ponho ainda da sua parte; porque procurar resistir a tantos males pareceria espécie de desavergonhamento.
Letter "written a little before his death", as quoted in The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: An Epic Poem (1776) by William Julius Mickle, p. cxvi
Letters

Hope, Disappointment

Quotes about Evil page 20

Quotes about Evil
page 20