“If we did but know how we rush into one evil while seeking to avoid another, we should have no resolution to shun any thing.”

Of the Tongues of Pigs and Calves in Sausage-skins.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

2011, Tucson Memorial Address (January 2011)
Context: We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
Context: I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here — they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Summations, Chapter 61
Source: Revelations of Divine Love
Context: If we never fell, we should not know how feeble and how wretched we are of our self, and also we should not fully know that marvellous love of our Maker. For we shall see verily in heaven, without end, that we have grievously sinned in this life, and notwithstanding this, we shall see that we were never hurt in His love, we were never the less of price in His sight. And by the assay of this falling we shall have an high, marvellous knowing of love in God, without end. For strong and marvellous is that love which may not, nor will not, be broken for trespass.

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

Letter to C. P. Scott (21 September 1912), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, Grey of Fallodon; Being the Life of Sir Edward Grey afterwards Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1937), p. 200
1910s

Essays in Persuasion (1931), Social Consequences of Changes in The Value of Money (1923)

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 129-130