“Genius does not excuse evil.”

Source: Intensity

Original: (la) Nullum malum bona intentione factum excusatur.
Variant: Variant translation: An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention.
Source: On the Ten Commandments (c. 1273)

Illustrated London News (23 October 1909)

As quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (1980) by Mary Collison, Robert L. Collison, p. 98

Source: Hunted

As quoted in "A Sentimental Education" by James Huneker, Scribner's Magazine, Vol. 43 (1908), p. 230, also quoted in Albert Camus's The Rebel and Nietzsche's Ecce Homo.

Source: Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 223
Context: Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic: it has no attributes peculiar to fallen angels. It is not even Machiavellian, for Machiavelli's teaching was graceful, subtle, and colorful. Nor is it Neronian. Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.