 
                            
                        
                        
                        Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 215
            Volume 1, p. 181 
The Prophets (1962)
        
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 215
                                        
                                        From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. August 1930) 
Letters
                                    
                                        
                                        Press conference in Iceland, March 25 2005  http://www.bobby-fischer.net/Fischer_clips_hair_but_not_views.htm 
2000s
                                    
                                        
                                        Attributed to Bonhoeffer on the Internet, and supposedly from  Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy http://books.google.com/books?id=aG0q3X8TVpsC&pg=PA486#v=onepage (2010) by Eric Metaxas; however, there is no actual reference in that book. However, in advertising the book Metaxas does state on his site that the quote  is from Bonhoeffer. http://ericmetaxas.com/books/bonhoeffer-pastor-martyr-prophet-spy/ First attributed to Bonhoeffer in Explorations 12:1 (1998), p. 3, as referenced by James Cone (2004) Theology's Great Sin: Silence in the Face of White Supremacy, Black Theology, 2:2, 139-152, footnote 1  http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/blth.2.2.139.36027 
Compare  "Not to Act, is to Act!" by Francis W. McPeek http://www.ergo-sum.net/pics/McPeek.jpg, The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad, v.141-142 (1945-1946), "Missionary herald, 1945 - Congregational churches," pp.34-35 (We must realize that church inaction is a form of political action, and it is altogether negative. “Not to act, is to act.”) 
Misattributed
                                    
“Evil must not be countered with another evil but, rather, repelled by an act of goodness.”
Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media
The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy http://books.google.com/books?id=uYEM0Sd18DsC&q="you+may+either+win+your+peace+or+buy+it%22+%22win+it+by+resistance+to+evil%22+%22buy+it+by+compromise+with+evil"&pg=PA196#v=onepage Lecture at Tunbridge Wells (February 16, 1858).
Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume II, (1999), p. 487
“Evil happens without effort, naturally, inevitably; good is always the product of skill.”
                                        
                                        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)
                                    
                                        
                                        As quoted in Margaret Mead : Some Personal Views (1979) edited by Rhoda Métraux 
As quoted in American Quotations (1992) by Gorton Carruth and Eugene H. Ehrlich 
1970s 
Variant: At times it may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
                                    
 
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                        