Quotes about Evil
page 32

Daniel Defoe photo

“All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 5, First Weeks on the Island.

Sulpicius Severus photo

“God, at the beginning, created two human beings, from whom the whole multitude of the human race has descended; and thus it is not the equity of nature, but the ambition of evil desire, which has given rise to worldly nobility.”

Sulpicius Severus (360–420) Christian writer and historian and native of Aquitania (c. 363-c. 425)

"Take Heed that Ye Love not Human Glory in any Respect," A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 11, p. 66

David Livingstone photo

“To overdraw its evil is a simple impossibility”

David Livingstone (1813–1873) Scottish explorer and missionary

Livingstone While talking about the slave trade in East Africa in his journals.

Rudy Rucker photo

“I’ve never seen a religion that wasn’t basically evil.”

Source: Master of Space and Time (1984), Chapter 10, “God’s Laws” (p. 72)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Stephen King photo
Mary Baker Eddy photo
Gregory of Nyssa photo

“I have often wondered why anger is considered by some Western religions to be a sin. It is such a marvelous protection against evil.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Marianne Trilogy, Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore (1985), Chapter 2 (p. 45)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Taxes are an evil—a necessary evil, but still an evil, and the fewer of them we have the better.”

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

Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collections of Quotations, ed. Richard Langworth, 2008, p. 424, (1907, 12 February)
Early career years (1898–1929)

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil.”

Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

“A warrior doesn't know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.”

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Journey to Ixtlan" (Chapter 8)

Isaac Asimov photo

“There is a kind of selective memory that afflicts men when they view the past. They see the good and overlook the evil.”

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

Source: The Roman Empire (1967), p. 191

Gregory Palamas photo

“How can someone have the freedom to choose and the power to act freely, unless he were able to be evil, should he so wish?”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Predestination? On Why God Made Those Who Would Perish

Franjo Tuđman photo
Evagrius Ponticus photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Original: (la) Nullum malum bona intentione factum excusatur.
Variant: Variant translation: An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention.
Source: On the Ten Commandments (c. 1273)

Arulselvam Rayappan photo
Steven Crowder photo
Charles Fillmore photo
Kayleigh McEnany photo

“We know most of our forefathers, all of our main Founding Fathers, were against slavery, recognized the evils of it.”

Kayleigh McEnany (1988) American political commentator and writer

Quoted by * 2021-07-06
Kayleigh McEnany Falsely Claims All The ‘Main Founding Fathers’ Opposed Slavery
Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kayleigh-mcenany-false-slavery-claim_n_60e4986ae4b06fb1a6f0128d

William Ellery Channing photo

“I am a living member of the great Family of All Souls; and I cannot improve or suffer myself without diffusing good or evil around me through an ever-enlarging sphere.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: "The Father's Love for Persons" https://www.google.com/books/edition/Select_Discourses_and_Essays/loYfAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22I+am+a+living+member+of+the+great+Family+of+All+Souls%22&pg=PA343&printsec=frontcover, in Selected Discourses and Essays from the works of William Ellery Channing, DD (1895)

Eliphas Levi photo

“Necromancy, and Goetia, which is Evil Magic, do produce such shells and demons, apparitions of deceit.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Miscellaneous Quotes On the Subjects of Magic and Magicians
Source: The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum, Eliphas Levi, Translated by W. Wynn Westcott, London, George Redway, 1896, p. 51.

Peter F. Drucker photo
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel photo

“Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Athenäum (1798 - 1800)
Source: “Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #31

Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr photo

“Evil is thou', and the worst evil is thou', which thou knowest it not.”

Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr (967–1049) poet

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 96

Mateo Alemán photo

“Idleness is the open field of perdition, well tilled and sown with evil thoughts.”

Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. VI.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)

Wojciech Jaruzelski photo
Harry Emerson Fosdick photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Phill Kline photo
Jack Vance photo
Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad photo

“The first requirement to purifying the soul is that one continues to remove all evil and impure thoughts from the heart.”

Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad (1889–1965) Caliph of the Messiah

Source: Irfan-e-Ilahi, Anwar-ul-Ulum, Vol. 4, p. 371

Winston S. Churchill photo
Gilbert O'Sullivan photo
Michel Henry photo
A. J. Muste photo
David Lynch photo

“Language is an evil thing, a very evil thing. And a force to be reckoned with.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

As quoted in The Guardian (19 March 2005)

“Absolute Evil exists. As kids we geriatrics learned all about it, and no damn social worker had better come along and blame “evil” on “conditions.””

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Evil is a force in the universe, a force using any weakness it finds to do its dirt; and with Evil, Hell is just a sideline.
Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 134

Guigo I photo

“Prepare your mind to live in the company of evil people, with your mind unsullied; to do this is to live like an angel.”

Guigo I (1083–1136) Cartusian monk

#22
The Meditations of Guigo I, Prior of the Charterhouse

Guillermo del Toro photo
Joseph the Hesychast photo
A. C. Grayling photo

“There is no greater social evil than religion. It is the cancer in the body of humanity.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 9, “Evil” (p. 34)

A. C. Grayling photo

““Evil” is first and foremost a religious notion. It means whatever a religion dislikes.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 9, “Evil” (p. 33)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Daniel Salamanca photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Alex Jones photo

“Authoritarians always blame whole groups. That's what the Left does, they're sick and they're evil.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

#671: April 13, 2022 https://knowledgefight.libsyn.com/671-april-13-2022(Knowledge Fight April 13th, 2022)

Ottobah Cugoano photo

“Slavery is an evil of the first magnitude, ... and contrary to all the genuine principles of Christianity, and yet carried on by men denominated thereby.”

Ottobah Cugoano (1757–1791) African abolitionist in England

Source: Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787), p. 24

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Freedom only comes through persistent revolt, through persistent agitation, through persistently rising up against the system of evil.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, The Birth of a New Nation (1957)

John Climacus photo
Sophocles photo

“Happy are they who know not the taste of evil.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Source: Antigone, Line 583 (Ode II)

Michael Francis Burbidge photo

“The stance against abortion is the pre-eminent priority. How could it not be? We have to get it right from the beginning. Our stance on life, that is our pre-eminent priority. We have to fight against this evil.”

Michael Francis Burbidge (1957) American Catholic bishop

The Walk Humbly Podcast - Episode 39: Protecting children online, priority of abortion, homelessness pilot project, and more! https://www.arlingtondiocese.org/bishop/walk-humbly-podcast/the-walk-humbly-podcast---episode-39/ (18 November 2019)

Benedict Rogers photo

“Dialogue for the sake of conversation serves no ethical, moral or practical purpose. Dialogue that is one way, or in which we are silent about our grave concerns about injustice, or where we end up kowtowing, appeasing or unwittingly complicit with evil, is immoral.”

Benedict Rogers (1974) London-based human rights activist

Vatican should talk to China — but not at any price https://www.ucanews.com/amp/vatican-should-talk-to-china-but-not-at-any-price/93985 (1 October 2021)

Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow photo

“War is an evil thing.”

Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow (1887–1952) British politician, agriculturalist and colonial administrator (1887-1952)

26 March 1940, Speech at St. John Ambulance Association and Indian Red Cross Society, also quoted in Speeches and Statements of the Marquess of Linlithgow, p. 241

“Mere abstention from a life of evil does not constitute a life devoted to good works.”

Source: Kesrick (1982), Chapter 3, “The Monster-Guarded Gate” (p. 25)

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“If collectivizing highly personal medical decisions is evil, then so follows that collectivized medicine is evil.”

Source: H.H. LAUGHLIN: American Scientist. American Progressive. Nazi Collaborator.

Zafar Mirzo photo
Prevale photo

“Sometimes, the worst evil wear love.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: ​A volte, il male peggiore indossa l'amore.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Never compete with who come from hell, he knows evil better than you.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Non competere mai con chi viene dall'inferno, conosce il male meglio di te.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Attention! Evil always knows the road back.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Attenzione! Il male conosce sempre la strada del ritorno.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“For a good future, it is essential to live the present by killing the evil of the past.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Per un buon futuro, è essenziale vivere il presente uccidendo il male del passato.
Source: prevale.net