Quotes about Evil
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“Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

1848
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)

“No matter how many times Percy killed them and watched them crumble to powder, they just kept re-forming like large evil dust bunnies.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Time

“I’m not sure I could trust a man who would bypass an Oreo in favor of vanilla wafers. It’s a fundamental character flaw, possibly a sign of true evil.”

Jonathan Maberry (1958) writer

Source: Patient Zero

“Does one deserve to have evil done to her by consequence of putting herself where evil can reach her?”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“jace's clothes had been clean, stylish, ordinary. Sebastian had been wearing a long black wool trench coat that had looked expensive.
Like an evil Burbeery ad, Simon said when she was done.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Clothes

“As much as some people would like to believe, for their own peace of mind, that the appearance of evil in this world had a clean cause, the truth was never that simple.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

People, Truth, World, Peace

“If Evil exists, it’s to be found in our fears”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Fear

“So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Fear, Hope

“How did you get me here? (Tory)
I have my evil Jedi ways. The Force is strong with this one. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Way, Strong

“It is a sin to believe evil of others but it is seldom a mistake.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

“Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Hell

“Pride is an evil dragon; it sleeps underneath your heart and then roars when you need silence.”

Jodi Picoult book Small Great Things

Source: Small Great Things

Sleep, Silence, Heart

“We should not accept an evil we can change.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Variant: Do not accept an evil you can change.
Source: We Were Liars

Change

“None of us can avoid being contaminated by the world's evils; it's all a matter of what attitude you take towards them.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

World

“Evil happens without effort, naturally, inevitably; good is always the product of skill.”

Charles Baudelaire Le Peintre de la vie moderne

Le mal se fait sans effort, naturellement, par fatalité; le bien est toujours le produit d'un art. XI: "Éloge du maquillage" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%89loge_du_maquillage Le peintre de la vie moderne (1863)

Nature, Effort

“People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Interview With The Vampire (1976)
Source: Interview with the Vampire

God, People

“It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

‘’It Shall Not Be Forgiven’’
Unspoken Sermons, First Series (1867)
Source: Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

Forgiveness, Passion, Heart

“And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually… it doesn't matter. Because if God does not exist, then life… every second of it… Is all we have.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

Life, God

“He had never felt entirely comfortable around Raphael. Raphael seemed to him like Loki or some other trickster God, sometimes working for good and sometimes for evil, but always in his own interests.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

God

“… It is the Law that while Evil, unopposed, may accomplish terrible deeds, the power of Good can never be overthrown when opposed to Evil…”

L. Frank Baum book The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

Source: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

Law

“Rats live on no evil star”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Star

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Men

“Negative desires can cause no evil if you do not allow yourself to be seduced by them.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

My Religion / Light in My Darkness, Ch 6 (1927)
Context: Self-culture has been loudly and boastfully proclaimed as sufficient for all our ideals of perfection. But if we listen to the best men and women everywhere … they will say that science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.

Science

“Because it’s our duty to God to protect the rest of humanity from evil creatures of the night.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

God, Night

“A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Suicide

“It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s Source: The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men http://books.google.com/books?id=AIHgK-p6mhgC&q=%22It+is+easier+to+denature+plutonium+than+it+is+to+denature+the+evil+spirit+of+man%22&pg=PA385#v=onepage, The New York Times Magazine ( June 23, 1946 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60715F63E5C14738DDDAA0A94DE405B8688F1D3)

“The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and who fears no evil; he who walks through doors.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Life, Death, Fear

“As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs (trans. Machen 1894), book 1, Preface http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/preface2.html Referenced Source: Geschichte Meines Lebens

Love, Teachers

“There are people whose souls have just withered, people who are willing to go along with anything evil - anything so as not to be suspected of disagreeing with whoever is in power.”

Vasily Grossman book Life and Fate

Source: Life and Fate

People, Soul

“And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Truth, Nature

“As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be no more potent force than religion.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

Source: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

People, Religion, Motivation

“You don't know whether chimps are going to kill you or kiss you. They're very open on some levels and much more evil in a certain way.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Way, Kiss

“Goor or evil, right or wrong, he mattered to me.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

“Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you might be delusional?'

That's what the psychiatrist said, but I think he's wrong. There's an evil flying pizza out there, and it's got Brenda's name on it.”

Janet Evanovich book Fearless Fourteen

Source: Fearless Fourteen

Thinking, Flying

“All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity are easy. Stay away from easy.”

Scott Alexander (1963) American writer, director and producer

Cheating

“Hate is the father of all evil.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Fall of Kings

Hate

“If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

People

“When you were the son of evil, there was little you couldn't do, own, or kill, and yet her mortal self was an elusive trophy he could touch, but not put on his shelf.

This made her rare. This made her precious.

This made him… love her.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Love

“Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Light, Indifference

“Evil doesn't die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we've been touched by it once, it doesn't mean we're immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Surgeon

Source: The Surgeon

Hurt

“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”

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

“You're not crazy. You're not evil. But you can't stop.”

Orson Scott Card book Shadow of the Giant

Shadow of the Giant

“The dark scary servant of all evil was on his way to rescue me. Somehow that thought failed to make me warm and fuzzy.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

Way

“With the proper training, I could've been an evil genius.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Training

“It takes a certain amount of courage, he thought, to face yourself and say with candor, I’m rotten. I’ve done evil and I will again. It was no accident; it emanated from the true, authentic me.”

Philip K. Dick book The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Source: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Chapter 7 (p. 112)

Courage

“Find good in what the world says is evil.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

World

“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

“Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself when apparent to the eyes; and we find the burden of anxiety greater, by much, than the evil which we are anxious about :…”

Daniel Defoe La vie et les aventures de Robinson Crusoe

Source: Robinson Crusoe

Fear, Time

“Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Source: Fortune's Fool

World

“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

The Tables Turned, st. 6 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

“I stand corrected. Afternoons are hard. Mornings are pure evil from the pits of hell”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

Hell

“Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit. All that exists is a magnificent interweaving, vast and reciprocal.”

Michel Houellebecq book Atomised

Source: Atomised

“But this was no ordinary chicken. This chicken was evil manifest.”

Terry Goodkind book Soul of the Fire

Source: Soul of the Fire

“Evil is an act, not an appetite. How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table? Present company excepted of course. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“There is a little good in all evil.”

Wilson Rawls book Where the Red Fern Grows

Source: Where the Red Fern Grows

“When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”

Euripidés Orestes

Source: Orestes (408 BC), l. 907

“Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Religion, Feeling, Freedom

“He lied, Jenny thought, racing up the steps. He changed the rules and he lied. Sometimes you can't return good for evil; sometimes evil simply has to be stopped.”

L.J. Smith The Forbidden Game

Source: The Forbidden Game

Change

“Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and there there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

God

“… Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Source: The Arkadians

People, Knowledge, Change

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Innovations
Essays (1625)

Time

“We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Daughter of the Blood

People

“Evil was coming. I wondered whose face it would be wearing.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

“Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it's good.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“I find it most remarkable that we who are so intimately involved in the battle between good and evil are even more involved with the shades of gray in between them.”

Christopher Golden (1967) American writer

Source: Sons of Entropy

“What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Dreams

“Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

Hannah Arendt book On Revolution

On Revolution (1963), ch. 2.
General sources
Context: What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

“Never thought my biggest cheerleader would be someone who thought I was evil and unnatural.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

“She loved with so much passion as she loved with ignorance. She did not know whether it were good or evil, beneficent or dangerous, necessary or accidental, eternal or transitory, permitted or prohibited: she loved.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Passion

“Evil to some is always good to others”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“Is a knife evil? Only if the wielder is evil.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“What problems?" "Well for starters.. you're an evil duck killer.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Problem

“There's no such thing as. All evil is motivated - even mine {Lucifer}.”

Glen Duncan book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

Motivation

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”

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

Help

“Sorry, Ms. Terwilliger. I'm flattered that you think I'm such an upstanding person, but I'm already caught up in one epic battle of good versus evil. I don't need another.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Thinking, Personality

“What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.”

Joan Didion book Play It as It Lays

Source: Play It as It Lays

People

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Walden (1854)
Source: Walden, or Life in the Woods
Context: There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.<!--p.87