“The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.”
"No, Not One," The Adelphi (October 1941), p. 7 http://books.google.com/books?id=hdwYAQAAIAAJ&q=%22The+choice+before+human+beings%22&pg=PA7#v=onepage- 8 http://books.google.com/books?id=hdwYAQAAIAAJ&q=%22is+not+as+a+rule+between+good+and+evil+but+between+two+evils%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage
Context: The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world: that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands.
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George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950Related quotes
“Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.”
Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 68.
“Welt muss mehr denn je diese Botschaft hören,” Giessener Allgemeine Zeitung, Giessen, Germany, April 12, 2005.
Attributed
Other
19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967
“Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil not the strength to choose between the two.”
The Late Forties and the Fifties, 1956 entry.
The Journals of John Cheever (1991)
“Between two evils, I generally like to pick the one I never tried before.”
Klondike Annie (1936) Sometimes quoted as: "When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."'
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.
“The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.”