2011, Tucson Memorial Address (January 2011)
Context: Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "when I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.
“The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.”
Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), ch. 15.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Adolf Eichmann 62
German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer 1906–1962Related quotes
Source: Lord of the Silent Kingdom (2007), Chapter 20 (pp. 518)
Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Phaedo 115e
literally: 'For know well', he said, 'o dearest Kriton, that to not speak well is not only sinful by itself, but lets evil intrude into the soul.'(εὖ γὰρ ἴσθι, ἦ δ᾽ ὅς, ὦ ἄριστε Κρίτων, τὸ μὴ καλῶς λέγειν οὐ μόνον εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο πλημμελές, ἀλλὰ καὶ κακόν τι ἐμποιεῖ ταῖς ψυχαῖς.)
Plato, Phaedo
From the novel "Whatever Love Means"