“The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.”

— Anthony Burgess , book A Clockwork Orange

Variant: The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.
Source: A Clockwork Orange

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Anthony Burgess 297

English writer 1917–1993

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Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) poet

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“And of me you ask which choice you should make?” said the translator’s voice.
“Yes,” I said.
There was the sound of rocks grinding, followed by a brief silence, and then: “The moral choice is obvious,” said the Wreed. “It always is.”
“And?” I said. “What is the moral choice?”
More sounds of rocks, then: “Morality cannot be handed down from an external source.” … “It must come from within.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

Robert J. Sawyer book Calculating God

The Wreed wavered and vanished.
Source: Calculating God (2000), Chapter 32 (p. 309; ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)

“Life is motion, and motion is concerned with what makes man move — which is ambition, power, pleasure. What time a man can devote to morality, he must take by force from the motion of which he is a part. He is compelled to make choices between good and evil sooner or later, because moral conscience demands that from him in order that he can live with himself tomorrow. His moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Paris Review interview (1958)

“Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

"Bishop Sheen Writes...Communism and Tragedy," The Toledo Blade, Sunday, July 26, 1959, sec. 2, p. 5. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22communists%20believe%20in%20the%20devil%22%20site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&q=%22Bishop+Sheen+Writes...+Communism+And+Tragedy%22+
Context: No one can understand Communism who does not believe in the devil. The Communists believe in the devil. The Communists organized a so-called "patriotic" church. A few brain washed were to be in charge of the churches because they were loyal to the anti-God regime.
One of the first orders given by the Communists to them was that the prayer to Prayer to Saint Michael be no longer said because it invoked the protection of St. Michael against "the wickedness and snares of the devil." As one Communist judge said: "We are those devils."
It is hard for many in the free world to believe that there are not only bad men, but evil men. Bad men steal, rape, ravage and plunder. Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor. Bad men who steal admit honesty; evil men who do not steal, call dishonesty "honesty," totalitarianism "democracy," slavery "freedom." Evil men can be nice at table, polite with women, courteous in Washington, refined in London and calm in Geneva.
But the principle which guides their every move is the maxim of Lenin: every lie, trickery, knavery and deceit must be used to.