Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 215
Volume 1, p. 181
The Prophets (1962)
Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 215
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author
From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. August 1930)
Letters
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer
Press conference in Iceland, March 25 2005 http://www.bobby-fischer.net/Fischer_clips_hair_but_not_views.htm <br class="br">2000s
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
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 <br class="br">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.”) <br class="br">Misattributed
“Evil must not be countered with another evil but, rather, repelled by an act of goodness.”
Mohammed Alkobaisi (1970) Iraqi Islamic scholar
Understanding Islam, "Morals and Ethics" http://vod.dmi.ae/media/96716/Ep_03_Morals_and_Ethics Dubai Media
John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic
The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy http://books.google.com/books?id=uYEM0Sd18DsC&q=&quot;you+may+either+win+your+peace+or+buy+it%22+%22win+it+by+resistance+to+evil%22+%22buy+it+by+compromise+with+evil&quot;&pg=PA196#v=onepage Lecture at Tunbridge Wells (February 16, 1858).
Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman
Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume II, (1999), p. 487
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“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. <br class="br">XI: "Éloge du maquillage" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%89loge_du_maquillage <br class="br">Le peintre de la vie moderne (1863)
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist
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.