Quotes about Evil
page 22

“Your Excellency undoubtedly has frequently had under consideration a proper position for winter-quarters. It is not always in the power of a General to take a position most favorable to his wishes, on ac count of provision and forage, or to place himself in the most advantageous point of view for covering the country and securing his capital posts. A certainty with respect to provision and forage is an object of the first consideration in taking a position. All inferior evils, of whatever nature, may, in some sort, be remedied by foresight and precaution; but there is no contending with hunger. Therefore, what would be considered only as secondary objects in some cases, become principals here.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (November 1779)

Hunger, Nature, Winter, Country

“An evil fate befall German efforts to defend the ideal of liberty in general and in the field of economics in particular, with the result that today I am almost the only survivor of a generation that set out in the wake of the First World War to devote all its energies to the preservation of a civilised society, a generation that set itself the task to build a better society in a systematic fashion and to learn to understand, an to some extent defend, a tradition that had civilised the world.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

"The Rediscovery of Freedom: Personal Recollections" (1983), published in The Fortunes of Liberalism (1992)
1980s and later

Fate, War, World, Fashion

“… if you rejoice in revenge, torture, and war […] you cannot say you're a follower of the guy who explicitly said "love your enemies" and "do good to those who hate you". The next line isn't, "And if that doesn't work, send a titanium-fanged dog to rip his nuts off". Jesus lays on that hippie stuff pretty thick! He has lines like, "do not repay evil with evil", and "do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you."”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Really! It's in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people.
"New Rules" segment, May 13, 2011; discussing many Christians' support of Osama bin Laden assassinationn and terrorist torture
Real Time with Bill Maher

Love, Hate, War, People

“But that was only a small part of the reason why I quit. The main reason was the disturbing new player-base. The game got bigger with every new expansion that was released, and as it got bigger, it brought in a vast amount of new players. I noticed that more and more “normal” people who had active and pleasurable social lives were starting to play the game, as the new changes catered to such a crowd. WoW no longer became a sanctuary where I could hide from the evils of the world, because the evils of the world had now followed me there. I saw people bragging online about their sexual experiences with girls… and they used the term “virgin” as an insult to people who were more immersed in the game than them. The insult stung, because it was true. Us virgins did tend to get more immersed in such things, because our real lives were lacking. I couldn’t stand to play WoW knowing that my enemies, the people I hate and envy so much for having sexual lives, were now playing the same game as me. There was no point anymore. My best friend Bradley, betrayed me by leaving me and going to some ginger named William. One day, I will get my revenge. I realized what a terrible mistake I made to turn my back on the world again. The world is brutal, and I need to fight for my place in it. My life was at a crucial turning point, and I couldn’t waste any more precious time.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Quitting World of Warcraft

Life, Hate, People, Pleasure

“Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots.”

Eleanor Farjeon book Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1922)

Children

“At the end of the Washington Monument rally in September, 1976, I was admitted to the second entering class at Unification Theological Seminary. During the next two years, I took a long prayer walk every evening. I asked God what He wanted me to do with my life, and the answer came not only through my prayers, but also through Father's many talks to us, and through my studies. Father encouraged us to set our sights high and accomplish great things. He also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in nature or history; in the process, they re-interpreted the fall, the incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination. Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph. D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”

Jonathan Wells (1942) American intelligent design advocate

Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm

Life, God, World, Imagination

“The object of punishment is, prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Lecture 7
Lectures on Education (1855)

““We may suffer for it when the balance of things rights itself, but we do not lose hope and forego art and forget the words of the Making. Nature is not unnatural. This is not a righting of the balance, but an upsetting of it. There is only one creature who can do that.”
“A man?” Arren said, tentative.
“We men.”
“How?”
“By an unmeasured desire for life.”
“For life? But it isn’t wrong to want to live?”
“No. But when we crave power over life—endless wealth, unassailable safety, immortality—then desire becomes greed. And if knowledge allies itself to that greed, then comes evil. Then the balance of the world is swayed, and ruin weighs heavy in the scale.””

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 3, "Hort Town" (Ged and Arren)

Life, Men, World, Hope

“The only important property of evils of the past is that they not be repeated in the future, in any way, shape, or form.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Stalin is not a cool name for software http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/428b1f0fb729d6c7 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Way, Past, Future

“When this intelligence reached the Amír, he considered it false, as being opposed to the usual habits of Jaipál; but after repeated accounts to the same effect were brought, when the curtain which obscured the truth was withdrawn, and he knew that God has set his seal upon Jaipál's heart, so that he might obtain the reward of his evil deeds, and placed a veil between it and rectitude, so that he might obtain punishment for his wickedness and infedelity. The Sultan therefore sharpened the sword of intention in order to make an incursion upon his kingdom, and cleanse it from impurity and from his rejection of Islam. So he departed with his valiant servants and allies, relying upon the one God, and trusting in the fulfilment of the promise of the victory; and he went on till he arrived with his troops in the country of Hind, and he killed everyone who, on the part of Jaipál, came out to oppose him.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, p. 22. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

God, Truth, Intelligence, Victory

“Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. […] Monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm
Attributed

“[Religion] is predominantly evil and entirely deceitful, has only negative correlations statistically, and is frequently maliciously abusive physically mentally and emotionally. It has historically always obstructed education and retarded or impeded progress in whatever application it has ever touched. All the worst atrocities in history were done in the name of religion and our greatest advances were made in opposition to it. I’m an antitheist because religion is factually historically ethically and morally wrong.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Anti-theist Answers to Christian Questions http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/22/anti-theist-answers-to-christian-questions/ (November 22, 2015)

Education, Religion, History

“How strange a thing is a love of woman, that is so small in the beginning and in its ends so great! (…) For when the Invisible conceived the order of universe He set this seed of woman's love within its plan, that by its most unequal growth is doomed to bring about equality of law. For now it lifts the low to heights untold, and now it brings the noble to the level of the dust. And thus, while Woman, this great surprise of Nature, is, Good and Evil can never grow apart.”

H. Rider Haggard book Cleopatra

Cleopatra (1889)

Love, Law, Nature, Universe

“The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Early Art
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

Youth, Art, Knowledge

“I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference.”

Glen Cook The Black Company

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 6, “Lady” (p. 205)

Feeling, Question

“no evil is
so worse than worst you fall in hate with love —human one mortally immortal i
can turn immense all time's because to why”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

7
95 poems (1958)

Love, Hate, Time

“Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Dreams, Universe

“You have only to cast your life-long guilt, your ungodliness, your evil thoughts and wicked words, your sinful soul itself, into this crime-canceling, sin-annihilating, soul-cleansing Fountain, in order to obliterate from God's creation your foul transgressions, and yet leave the Divine perfection fair as ever. The sin which a Saviour's blood dissolves is the only sin which, after being once committed, is totally extinguished.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 84.

Life, God, Soul, Perfection

“An evil may be real, tho' its cause has no relation to us: It may be real, without being peculiar: It may be real, without shewing itself to others: It may be real, without being constant: And it may be real, without falling under the general rules. Such evils as these will not fail to render us miserable, tho' they have little tendency to diminish pride: And perhaps the most real and the most solid evils of life will be found of this nature.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 6
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Life, Nature

“In many of Albrecht Dürer’s engravings there are harrowing depictions of his own melancholia; the manic wheeling stars of Van Gogh are the precursors of the artist’s plunge into dementia and the extinction of self. It is a suffering that often tinges the music of Beethoven, of Schumann and Mahler, and permeates the darker cantatas of Bach. The vast metaphor which most faithfully represents this fathomless ordeal, however, is that of Dante, and his all-too-familiar lines still arrest the imagination with their augury of the unknowable, the black struggle to come:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
Ché la diritta via era smarrita.
In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wood,
For I had lost the right path.
One can be sure that these words have been more than once employed to conjure the ravages of melancholia, but their somber foreboding has often overshadowed the last lines of the best-known part of that poem, with their evocation of hope. To most of those who have experienced it, the horror of depression is so overwhelming as to be quite beyond expression, hence the frustrated sense of inadequacy found in the work of even the greatest artists. But in science and art the search will doubtless go on for a clear representation of its meaning, which sometimes, for those who have known it, is a simulacrum of all the evil of our world: of our everyday discord and chaos, our irrationality, warfare and crime, torture and violence, our impulse toward death and our flight from it held in the intolerable equipoise of history. If our lives had no other configuration but this, we should want, and perhaps deserve, to perish; if depression had no termination, then suicide would, indeed, be the only remedy. But one need not sound the false or inspirational note to stress the truth that depression is not the soul’s annihilation; men and women who have recovered from the disease — and they are countless — bear witness to what is probably its only saving grace: it is conquerable.”

William Styron book Darkness Visible

Source: Darkness Visible (1990), X

Life, Death, Women, Men

“I do not approve of you, Thomas, and I do not approve of your woman, but nor can I approve of a Church that uses pain to bring the love of God to a sinful world. Evil begets evil, it spreads like a weed, but good works are tender shoots that need husbandry.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Abbott Planchard, p. 212
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

Love, God, Pain, World

“Standing on my watch-tower I am commanded, if I see aught of evil coming, to give warning. I solemnly declare that I do discern evil approaching; I see a storm collecting in the heavens; I discover the commotion of the troubled elements; I hear the roar of a distant wind — heaven and earth seem mingled in the conflict — and I cry to those for whom I watch, "A storm! A storm! Get you into the ark or you are swept away. "Oh! what is it I see? I see a world convulsed and falling to ruins — the sea burning like oil — nations rising from under ground — the sun falling — the damned in chains before the bar, and some of my poor hearers among them! I see them cast from the battlements of the judgment scene. My God! the eternal pit has closed upon them forever!”

Edward Dorr Griffin (1770–1837) American academic administrator

Sermons, vol. II (1839), sermon XXXIX: "The Watchman".

God, World, Distant, Sun

“The last subject to which I am desirous to direct your attention as to a means of self-improvement, is that of philanthropic exertion for the good of others. I allude here more particularly to the efforts which you may be able to make for the benefit of those whose social position is inferior to your own. It is my deliberate conviction, founded on long and anxious consideration of the subject, that not only might great positive good be effected by an association of earnest young men, working together under judicious arrangements for this common end, but that its reflected advantages would overpay the toil of effort, and more than indemnify the cost of personal sacrifice. And how wide a field is now open before you! It would be unjust to pass over unnoticed the shining examples of virtues, that are found among tho poor and indigent There are dwellings so consecrated by patience, by self-denial, by filial piety, that it is not in the power of any physical deprivation to render them otherwise than happy. But sometimes in close contiguity with these, what a deep contrast of guilt and woe! On the darker features of the prospect we would not dwell, and that they are less prominent here than in larger cities we would with gratitude acknowledge; but we cannot shut our eyes to their existence. We cannot put out of sight that improvidence that never looks beyond the present hour; that insensibility that deadens the heart to the claims of duty and affection; or that recklessness which in the pursuit of some short-lived gratification, sets all regard for consequences aside. Evils such as these, although they may present themselves in any class of society, and under every variety of circumstances, are undoubtedly fostered by that ignorance to which the condition of poverty is most exposed; and of which it has been truly said, that it is the night of the spirit,—and a night without moon and without stars. It is to associated efforts for its removal, and for the raising of the physical condition of its subjects, that philanthropy must henceforth direct her regards. And is not such an object great 1 Are not such efforts personally elevating and ennobling? Would that some part of the youthful energy of this present assembly might thus expend itself in labours of benevolence! Would that we could all feel the deep weight and truth of the Divine sentiment that " No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

George Boole, "Right Use of Leisure," cited in: James Hogg Titan Hogg's weekly instructor, (1847) p. 250; Also cited in: R. H. Hutton, " Professor Boole http://books.google.com/books?id=pfMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA153," (1866), p. 153 1840s

Men, Happiness, Truth, Youth

“It’s no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing.”

Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer

Gypsy and Ginger (1920)

Cry

“Paul Valéry has no hesitation in saying that the greatest evils today are elections and diplomas.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

“Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.”

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

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

Life

“Oh, you don't wanna mess with the R-I-double-A
They'll sue you if you burn that CD-R
It doesn't matter if you're a grandma, or a seven-year-old girl
They'll treat you like the evil, hard-bitten, criminal scum you are”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

"Don't Download This Song", Straight Outta Lynwood (2006).
Song lyrics

Girl, Grandma

“Clinton, Kennedy, they all carried out mass murder, but they didn't think that that was what they were doing - nor does Bush. You know, they were defending justice and democracy from greater evils. And in fact I think you'd find it hard to discover a mass murderer in history who didn't think that.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2004, Interview by Wallace Shawn, 2004

Justice, Democracy, History, Thinking

“With life and all I've been through, I do have a belief in goodness, a good spirit. I think what people have done with religion is personified good and evil, so good's become God with 'o' out, and evil's become Devil with a 'd' added. That's my theory of religion.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000)

Life, God, People, Religion

“[W]hat Reconstruction succeeded in doing: it helped us avoid a renewed outbreak of civil war (which, considering the history of civil conflicts, is no small achievement); it laid the legal and constitutional foundations for a more egalitarian America, foundations that it took only sixty-five years to revitalize into the Civil Rights Movement; it restored the original balance of constitutional federalism, putting aside the states’ rights absolutism of the pre-war Southern aristocracy. But I do not say this to encourage any historical Pollyannaism about Reconstruction. That restored federal balance permitted the emergence of the first women’s voting rights legislation, the curtailing of municipal corruption, and the introduction of widespread public schooling; it also permitted the emergence of Jim Crow. But as Lincoln said, “this is a world of compensation.””

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

The historical good and the evil, even in Reconstruction, do not come unmixed.
2010s, Interview with Sara Gabbard (2018)

Women, War, World, School

“I can't be frustrated at you because you’re stupid but I can be mad at you because you’re evil.”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, March 2009 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29676733/12

Stupidity, Madness

“I recommend that the pilgrims [to Mecca and Al-Medina] pray there, that they be persistent in their prayer. Prayer is a very good way of worshiping God. They should not forget to pray. But for every prayer there should also be a curse. Your prayers should also include curses. Pray for the good and curse the evil. Say: "My Lord, end the lives of three people shortly – Bush, Sharon, and Blair. End their lives and the lives of their followers. Ask the Lord.”

Ali Meshkini (1922–2007) Iranian ayatollah

Ayatollah Meshkini in a Friday Sermon at Qom: Pray that God Ends the Lives of Bush, Blair and Sharon Soon. Iranian Leaders Must Promote Nuclear Activities http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/400.htm December 2004. 2004

God, People, Way, Forgetting

“The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

The Good Man

Hate, Time, Success

“Well, I don't even know how to drive in this life, so I'm pretty far from ever having the life of being a stuntdouble. I liked- I had an Evil Knievel doll when i was a kid, that's about it!”

John Frusciante (1970) American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer

On "By The Way" Documentary

Life

“This evil nation has smeared fag feces blended with dyke-- fag semen and dyke feces on the Bible!”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

"Sermon_20010914.mp3". WBC Download Center http://downloads.westborobaptistchurch.com/. Westboro Baptist Church. September 14, 2001 2000s, God Hates America (2001)

“The world is full of warfare 'twixt the evil and the good;
I watched the battle from afar as one who understood
The shouting and confusion, the bloody, blundering fight—
How few there are that see it clear, how few that wage it right!”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Another Chance.

World, Fight

“Keep what you’ve got; the evil that we know is best. (translator Thornton)”
Habeus ut nactus ; nota mala res optima’st.

Plautus Trinummus

Trinummus, Act I, scene 2, lines 25
Trinummus (The Three Coins)

“Many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world.”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

Regarding slavery (1838), as quoted in Brother Against Brother: The War Begins, (The Civil War series) vol. 1, William C. Davis, New York, NY, Time-Life Books, (1983) p. 40
1830s

World, Light

“Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it.
The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

The Failure of Christianity (1913)

Life, Pain, Fear, Disease

“Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter XIX, paragraph 15, line 1

World, Despair

“Thus, it is established that Adam is the human race, by whatever names he was called. Since it is clear that he became manifest in the form of a man, naturally on every plane he is fallible. But God is not his partner in any errors. For, he taught him beauty and ugliness and truth and falsehood, and he learned good and evil. But his kingship is a result of the divine decree. And if he remains continually in his position or steps down, or is deposed from it, in each case it is the result of the divine decree. His cause is exalted with God. Whenever he is a temporal ruler, his leadership is like that of any other. If he is among the prophets, his commands and prohibitions are from God, and his kingship is by God’s command, and he is the leader of the people as long as he lives. After their deaths, some hold that they must continue to be obeyed, and others mention them with their lips, and love for them is continual.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Treatise on Kingship

Love, Death, God, People

“Alvin had met true evil in his life, but he still persisted in thinking it was awful rare, and the word was bandied about too much by those who didn’t understand what real badness was.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 10.

Life, Understanding, Thinking

“The Christian does not decide between violence and nonviolence, evil and good. He decides between the less and the greater evil.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Black Theology and Black Power (1969), p. 143

“It is possible for your ideas to cause chemical reactions that impede your body’s ability to accept nourishment. If you believe that the body is evil, the purest health-food diet will or may do you little good at all, while if you have a healthy desire and respect for your physical body, a diet of TV dinners, and even fast foods, may well keep you healthy and nourished.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 259

Health, Food, Idea

“It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

People, Optimism, Indifference

“I've been playing the CNN Drinking Game, have you ever played that? Where you do a shot every time George Bush says the word "evil"? Oh, I'm a wreck! You gotta do a double shot every time he says "evildoers". Chug the bottle for "axis of evil."”

Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author

Are you a president or an exorcist?!
Word of Mouth (2002)

Game, Drink, Time

“I am far from wishing to treat lightly or inconsiderately the evils attendant upon a standing army. The history of those countries where standing armies have been allowed to usurp an ascendancy over the civil authorities, is a volume pregnant with instruction to every one. We may look at France, for instance, and derive a lesson of eternal importance. But when it is said, that in ancient Rome twelve thousand praetorian bands were potent enough to dispose of that empire according to their will and pleasure, it should be remembered that that was the result of a number of pre-disposing causes, which have no existence in England. Before the civil constitution of any country can be overturned by a standing army, the people of that country must be lamentably degenerate; they must be debased and enervated by all the worst excesses of an arbitrary and despotic government; their martial spirit must be extinguished; they must be brought to a state of political degradation, I may almost say of political emasculation, such as few countries experience that have once known the blessings of liberty.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (8 March 1816), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), p. 12.
1810s

People, Pleasure, History, Country

“For what comes is Judgment: happy are those whom it finds labouring in their vocations, whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying good plans to deliver humanity a hundred years hence from some great evil. The curtain has indeed now fallen. Those pigs will never in fact be fed, the great campaign against White Slavery or Governmental Tyranny will never in fact proceed to victory. No matter; you were at your post when the Inspection came.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The World's Last Night (1952)

Happiness, Victory

“I do not know whether it was the will of God, or just an evolutionary accident, but as it happens I am Afrikaans. This is a circumstance with which I am normally perfectly content. The truth is that I actually do not think about it too much, just as I do not think about it too much that I have a liver. The current flutterings about Afrikaans, however, I find disturbing. It is not doing the image of Afrikaners, and hence also of Afrikaans, any good.A mere ten years after the end of apartheid (yes, there was such a thing, and it was evil) to beat one's chest in such a self-justificatory manner, is bad taste morally.…
We are … being called up by certain parties to mobilise for Afrikaans, to fight for the survival of Afrikaans, and for minority rights. The problem is, however, that I do not see myself currently as part of a minority. When, in the 1970s and 1980s, as an Afrikaner, I resisted apartheid – and not in the 1990s when it became fashionable – then I felt myself part of a minority. At present I mainly find myself with an enormous feeling of moral relief. I would now like to carry on with my life and make a constructive contribution at the level of content. I do not wish to have to write letters like this one.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Paul Cilliers. A letter to The Burger, 10 October 2005; Cited in: Chris Brink (2006) No Lesser Place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch. p. 133

Life, God, Truth, Feeling

“Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 68.

“The principle of my political life …. is, that all ameliorations and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.”

Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847) Irish political leader

Writing in The Nation (Irish newspaper), 18 November, 1843.

Life, Country

“If a man has done evil in his life, he must not be complimented in marble.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

As quoted in Simon, James F., Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney (2006), Simon and Schuster, p. 268.

Life

“To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 2, lines 1-5

People, Fear, Law

“If the slave-power could now in good faith stand where the fathers stood, with the added lights of experience shining upon the question, asking sympathy and co-operation in a system of emancipation, pleading that it was unfair to ask them to make greater sacrifices than other men are willing to make, allowing that it was a common evil, the cost and trouble of whose removal should be cheerfully borne by all, or if the laws of any slave state looked towards the gradual relief of the difficulty, there is not an honest man in the North or the South whose heart would not tremble with joy as he contemplated the destiny of his country.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Men, Faith, Law, Question

“But while at the bottom of the national life the slime was thus constantly accumulating more and more deleteriously and deeply, so much the more smooth and glittering was the surface, overlaid with the varnish of polished manners and universal friendship. All the world interchanged visits; so that in the houses of quality it was necessary to admit the persons presenting themselves every morning for the levee in a certain order fixed by the master or occasionally by the attendant in waiting, and to give audience only to the more notable one by one, while the rest were more summarily admitted partly in groups, partly en masse at the close—a distinction which Gaius Gracchus, in this too paving the way for the new monarchy, is said to have introduced. The interchange of letters of courtesy was carried to as great an extent as the visits of courtesy; "friendly" letters flew over land and sea between persons who had neither personal relations nor business with each other, whereas proper and formal business-letters scarcely occur except where the letter is addressed to a corporation. In like manner invitations to dinner, the customary new year's presents, the domestic festivals, were divested of their proper character and converted almost into public ceremonials; even death itself did not release the Roman from these attentions to his countless "neighbours," but in order to die with due respectability he had to provide each of them at any rate with a keepsake. Just as in certain circles of our mercantile world, the genuine intimacy of family ties and family friendships had so totally vanished from the Rome of that day that the whole intercourse of business and acquaintance could be garnished with forms and flourishes which had lost all meaning, and thus by degrees the reality came to be superseded by that spectral shadow of "friendship," which holds by no means the least place among the various evil spirits brooding over the proscriptions and civil wars of this age.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Pt. 2, Translated by W.P. Dickson.
On Roman Friendship in the last ages of the Republic.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Life, Death, Friendship, War

“On the one hand I did think the war was less than righteous. On the other hand I love my country. And I valued my life in a small town and my friends and family. So I wrestled with what was, for me, at least, more torturous and devastating and emotionally painful than anything that happened in Vietnam. Do you go off and kill people if you're not pretty sure it's right? And if your nation isn't pretty sure it's right? If there isn't some consensus, do you do that? In the end, I just capitulated, and one day I got on a bus with some other recent graduates, and we went over to Sioux Falls about sixty miles away, and raised our hands and went into the Army. But it wasn't a decision; it was a forfeiture of a decision. It was letting my body go, turning a switch in my conscience, just turning it off, so it wouldn't be barking at me saying, "You're doing a bad and evil and stupid and unpatriotic thing."”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

from the companion book, p. 318
From The Vietnam War (2017)

Love, Life, Pain, War

“Is there any doubt that drug addiction is an escape from an unbearable inner state - from a reality that one cannot deal with - from an atrophying mind one can never fully destroy? If Apollonian reason were unnatural to man, and Dionysian intuition brought him closer to nature and truth, the apostles of irrationality would not have to resort to drugs. Happy, self-confident men do not seek to get stoned. Drug addiction is the attempt to obliterate one's consciousness, the quest for a deliberately-induced insanity. As such, it is so obscene and evil that any doubt about the moral character of its practitioners is itself an obscenity.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Men, Happiness, Truth, Confidence

“Bin Laden's real audience is the Middle East, his other Muslims. I think he thought that, by this act, he would win large numbers of converts to his cause … [to] bring Arab regimes down. He would perhaps even take power in this or that country, preferably Saudi Arabia. That is where he is looking to; that is who is the audience. That is who his symbols are directed towards. So this is unlike anything else in the history of Islam. Early Muslims, when they left the Arabian Peninsula and entered the [Fertile Crescent], were conquerors. They converted peoples, and they gave them time to convert. So they didn't force them sometimes, and they were perfectly happy ruling over them. They were setting up a state, and then people converted over time. Syria remained Christian for hundreds of years after the Muslim conquest. So something different is going on here. The obvious sense in which the United States is evil is in the cultural icons that are seen everywhere. They are seemingly trivial things, the influence of the America culture, which is everywhere: TV, how women dress, the lack of importance of religion. So these are the senses in which they are rejecting the United States. But you're right; they don't see Americans as people. … They block that out. They only see as people the Muslims they want to convert to their side, and that's terrifying.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/interviews/makiya.html, PBS Frontline (2002)

Women, Happiness, People, Religion

“There is a deep impression of awe produced by such a vast but silent crowd; we are at once conscious that the cause is terrible which can induce the unusual stillness. The issue of a trial on which hangs life or death, is indeed an appalling thing. We know that men are about to take away that which they cannot give—that a few words of human breath will deprive of breath one of the number for ever; and though we acknowledge that in this evil world punishment is the only security against crime, and that blood for blood has been a necessity from the beginning of time; still, we feel that the necessity is a dreadful one.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Life, Death, Men, World

“He was the guy who by his heroic actions gave a morality and dignity to the American military effort. At war sometimes things get topsy turvy, so he was a moral example at a time when things were pure evil.”

Hugh Thompson, Jr. (1943–2006) United States helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War

Douglas Brinkley, Tulane history professor. http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1136568553158920.xml&storylist=louisiana Quotes of others about Thompson

War, Guy, Effort, Time

“This is the way of peace — overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.”

Peace Pilgrim (1908–1981) American non-denominational spiritual teacher

The one-sentence peace message summarizing her ideas. Ch. 3 : The Pilgrimage
Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1982)

Love, Truth, Peace, Way

“The truthfulness which Jesus demands from his followers is the self-abnegation which does not hide sin. Nothing is then hidden, everything is brought forth to the light of day. In this question of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man’s whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness.”

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

Source: Discipleship (1937), Truthfulness, p. 138.

Men, God, Truth, Question

“The “bleeding hearts” who want love without anger, relationship without conflict, harmony without contradictions, are forced to create an illusory world of unambivalent love. … It is not accidental that such perfect persons (who never question their own motives, or suspect their hidden ideology or self-interest) make other feel tainted and guilty. Every sentimental sermon is served with a side-dish of guilt. In their presence, honest doubt is named cynicism, anger is called evil, and ambivalence is castigated as craziness.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 84

Love, World, Feeling, Motivation

“To cease from evil, to do good, and to purify the mind yourself, this is the teaching of all the Buddhas.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Khuddaka Nikaya (Minor Collection), Dhammapada, Ch. 14, Verse 183

“There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Hay un concepto que es el corruptor y el desatinador de los otros. No hablo del mal cuyo limitado imperio es la ética; hablo del infinito.
"Avatars of the Tortoise"
Variant translations:
One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.
There is a concept that is the corruptor and dazzler of others. I'm not talking about the evil whose limited empire is the ethic; I'm talking about infinity.
There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.
Discussion (1932)

“Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Money, Effort

“Every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

1 John 5:4 NLT
First Letter of John

God, World, Faith, Victory

“With the massive amount of personal data on the Internet, Facebook nation has opened Pandora's box of total information awareness in the age of big data. Fortunately, Pandora's box released not only evil but also hope. … The hope is that good will trump evil.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

Age, Hope, Personality, Box

“Haven't read Koran so couldn't quote chapter & verse like I can for Bible. But often say Islam greatest force for evil today”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/307369895031603200 (28 February 2013) Twitter

Quotes, Reading

“Out of a desire that there may be a progress in these directions, with all that such progress means, this great Society continues its efforts. It recognizes that whoever has an evil tongue cannot have a pure mind. We read that 'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh'. This is a truth which is worthy of much thought. He who gives license to his tongue only discloses the contents of his own mind. By the excess of his words he proclaims his lack of discipline. By his very violence he shows his weakness. The youth or man who by disregarding this principle thinks he is displaying his determination and resolution and emphasizing his statements is in reality only revealing an intellectual poverty, a deficiency in self-control and self-respect, a want of accurate thinking and of spiritual insight, which cannot come save from a reverence for the truth. There are no human actions which are unimportant, none to which we can be indifferent. All of them lead either towards destruction and death, or towards construction and life.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

Life, Death, Truth, Youth

“Me, I just don't care about proprietary software. It's not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesn't matter. I think that Open Source can do better, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is by working on Open Source, but it's not a crusade – it's just a superior way of working together and generating code.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

2000s, 2007

Money, Way, Thinking

“That was the evil of Dr. Bertram Waters: the perpetuation of hopeless dreams, compounded by the betrayal of those dreams to make his own a reality.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Death in Florence (1978), Chapter 2 “A New Mann” (p. 99).

Dreams, Reality, Water, Betrayal

“Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Assignment in Eternity

Assignment in Eternity (1953)

Men

“The idea of evil as it appears in modern secular thought is an inheritance from Christianity. To be sure, rationalists have repudiated the idea; but it is not long before they find they cannot do without it. What has been understood as evil in the past, they insist, is error – a product of ignorance that human beings can overcome. Here they are repeating a Zoroastrian theme, which was absorbed into later versions of monotheism: the belief that ‘as the “lord of creation” man is at the forefront of the contest between the powers of Truth and Untruth.’ But how to account for the fact that humankind is deaf to the voice of reason? At this point rationalists invoke sinister interests – wicked priests, profiteers from superstition, malignant enemies of enlightenment, secular incarnations of the forces of evil. As so often is the case, secular thinking follows a pattern dictated by religion while suppressing religion’s most valuable insights. Modern rationalists reject the idea of evil while being obsessed by it. Seeing themselves as embattled warriors in a struggle against darkness, it has not occurred to them to ask why humankind is so fond of the dark. They are left with the same problem of evil that faces religion. The difference is that religious believers know they face an insoluble difficulty, while secular believers do not. Aware of the evil in themselves, traditional believers know it cannot be expelled from the world by human action. Lacking this saving insight, secular believers dream of creating a higher species. They have not noticed the fatal flaw in their schemes: any such species will be created by actually existing human beings.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Faith of Puppets: The Faith of Puppets (p. 18-9)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

Truth, World, Religion, Dreams

“In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure la liberté de la presse, il faut savoir se soumettre aux maux inévitables qu'elle fait naître.
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter X-XIV, Chapter XI.

“Science is a systematic method for studying and working out those generalizations that seem to describe the behavior of the universe. It could exist as a purely intellectual game that would never affect the practical life of human beings either for good or evil, and that was very nearly the case in ancient Greece, for instance. Technology is the application of scientific findings to the tools of everyday life, and that application can be wise or unwise, useful or harmful. Very often, those who govern technological decisions are not scientists and know little about science.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"By the Numbers" (May 1973), in The Tragedy of the Moon (1973), p. 190
General sources

Life, Behavior, Game, Decision

“I take it that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catholics would thank us infinitely more if we were to wipe away that foul blot than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had everything Protestant—a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique; Protestant judges who have polluted the seats of justice; Protestant magistrates before whom the Catholic peasant cannot hope for justice; they have not only Protestant but exterminating landlords, and more than that a Protestant soldiery, who at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant even in the presence of his widowed mother. The consequence of all this is the extreme discontent of the Irish people. And because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, your object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people. The object is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those in Suffolk and Dorsetshire. The object is that when the horizon is brightened every night by incendiary fires, no priest of the paid establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people among whom he is living…Ireland is suffering, not from the want of another Church, but because she has already one Church too many.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (16 April 1845) against the Maynooth grant, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 161-162.
1840s

People, Justice, Hope, Suffering

“To present universal Nature as the deep in which each soul with its moral hopes is to be engulfed, is to transform existence into a system of radical and irremediable evil, and thus to make genuine religion impossible;”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Modern Science and Pantheism, p.79-80

Religion, Hope, Soul, Nature

“Manicheism, n., The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.”

Harry Turtledove book American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003)

Victory, Fight

“Inside Britain there is a parallel threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians too. Small in number, those anti-democratic forces have gained great power through the trades union movement. Just to state that fact is to be accused of 'union-bashing'—often by people who know it to be true. Such people are to be found in the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties. Their politics may be different but such people share the morality of Laval and Pétain…they are willing not only to tolerate evil, but to excuse it…and to profit by so doing…Both Jim Prior and Keith Joseph know that George Ward and Grunwick are not perfect, nor was Czechoslovakia perfect in 1938. But if Ward and Grunwick are destroyed by the red fascists, then, as in 1938, we will have to ask, whose turn is it next? Yes, it is like 1938. We can all see the evil, but the doctrine of appeasement is still to be heard.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

Speech in Chingford on the Grunwick dispute (12 September, 1977).
Tebbit, pp. 194-5.

People, Perfection

““How many hundreds of thousands,” it said, “have these padres turned to Christianity and keep on turning! How many hundreds of children have they swallowed up! On how many more they have cast their nets! How much evil is yet to come upon us by their means! If we sleep as heretofore, in a short time they will turn all to Christianity without exceptions, and our temples will he changed into churches… When Christianity has laid waste the land, will a blade of Hinduism grow there? When the flood rushes up over our heads it will be too late. It is because of our carelessness that these strangers insult our gods in the open streets during our festivals.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

God, Children, Sleep, Change

“There are only two loves, whence originate all our wishes and all our actions: the love of God which does all for God and which God rewards and the love of ourselves and of the world, which does not refer to God what should be referred to him and which for that very reason becomes evil.”

Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719) French theologian

44th Proposition, as translated by Mary Ilford in The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1968), pp. 118-119

Love, God, World

“The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the summed total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity to inflict catastrophic damage, especially in our technological age when airplanes can become powerful bombs. (An even more evil man, armed only with a longbow, could not have wreaked such havoc at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.)”

Stephen Jay Gould book I Have Landed

"The Good People of Halifax", p. 390 (originally appeared in The Globe and Mail, 2001-09-20)
I Have Landed (2002)

Age

“Destroying Kabaa stone by stone, is less evil than killing a single Muslim…”

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

Narrated by An-Nasaie and At-Termithi [citation needed]
Sunni Hadith

“To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

New York Times magazine op-ed piece, May 2, 2004

War

“The evil we previously objectified and assigned to exterior agents—devils, communists, capitalists, chauvinists, faithless lovers, the system—must be discovered within. We can no longer divide the world between good and evil. The line between saints and sinners runs down the middle of my being... I destroy my propaganda machine that automatically casts me in a favorable light and others in the shadow.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), pp. 146-147

World, Lovers, Light

“There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (1897), ch. XII: The Essentials in the Struggle, paragraph 93: "The Moral Movement" http://web.archive.org/20000818045142/members.tripod.com/~DuBois/supp.html

Life, Idea

“Nature knows no tragedies or catastrophes. It knows no good or evil. It knows only creation and destruction. and one can never truly be happy and free, in the way we were as children before learning of our mortality, without at some point confronting our destruction. And all we can ask for, all we can hope for, all we can beseech God for, is to win a few battles in a war we will ultimately lose.”

Neil Strauss book Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life (2009)

God, War, Happiness, Children

“As a nation, we are too young to have true mythic heroes, and we must press real human beings into service. Honest Abe Lincoln the legend is quite a different character from Abraham Lincoln the man. And so should they be. And so should both be treasured, as long as they are distinguished. In a complex and confusing world, the perfect clarity of sports provides a focus for legitimate, utterly unambiguous support [or] disdain. The Dodgers are evil, the Yankees good. They really are, and have been for as long as anyone in my family can remember.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Diamonds are a Fan's Best Friend", pp. 246–247; originally published in Washington Post Book World (1981-06-21)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

World, Family, Support, Sport

“No one is evil, they just make very bad decisions. And no one has super powers, they only have their street smarts.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

[Eye for Film, Giving British films some Punch, http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/feature.php?id=545, Amber, Wilkinson, 18 July 2008, 23 February 2012, www.eyeforfilm.co.uk]

Decision

“A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Tombs of Atuan (1971), Chapter 12, "Voyage"

Pain, Travel, Feeling, Mountain

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Manuel II Palaiologos, in the 7th of the 26 Dialogues Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia (1391), this quote became the subject of controversy when it was used by Benedict XIV in his lecture "Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections" (12 September 2006)
Misattributed

Death, God, Faith, Soul