I, 8
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer.
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.
“In God's providence there is no evil, but only good or its preparation.”
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Jnana
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Sri Aurobindo 224
Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, gur… 1872–1950Related quotes
XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
“Evil and good are God's right hand and left.”
Philip James Bailey, in Festus (1839), misattribution of this to Mann seems to have only started in recent years, on the internet.
Misattributed
“God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”
Enchiridion (c. 420 ), Ch. 27