Quotes about malice

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posthumous quotes, The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas', (1961)

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election http://books.google.com/books?id=DAAUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA435&dq=%22we+are+generally+cold,+and+languid,+and+sluggish%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D4TSUuXqDYrekQe6uoH4Cw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22we%20are%20generally%20cold%2C%20and%20languid%2C%20and%20sluggish%22&f=false (6 September 1780)
1780s

Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 11 (p. 196)

Parliamentary speech, 17 November 2005 (excerpts)

Murphy's Law Book Two : More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980) ISBN 0843106743 by Arthur Bloch page 52.
This statement has often been referred to as Hanlon's Razor, though the author himself has remained relatively unknown, and some theories arose that "Hanlon" might have been a corruption of "Heinlein". Hanlon actually was a winner in a contest to come up with further statements similar to "Murphy's Law", for publication in this particular book. This phrase or very similar statements have also been attributed to William James, Napoleon Bonaparte, Richard Feynman (who might well have quoted it) and others.
Similar statements have been made by Goethe, and indeed, Robert Heinlein:
In The Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe declared, "Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence."
In his story Logic of Empire (1941) Heinlein declares: "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity". He calls this the "devil theory" of sociology. His character Lazarus Long also voices a variation on the theme in the novel Time Enough for Love: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
Variants of the phrase which have been variously attributed to this wide assortment of authors include:
Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Major William Eaton, commander of the US Marines at Derna, 1806 ("...the Shores of Tripoli..."), of Wayne

Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter vi “Death Comes Home”, Section (p. 507)
(1987), BOOK THREE: OUT OF THE EMPTY QUARTER

Advice to Clever Children (1981)

On her dance institution called Nityagram quoted in The Dream, 14 January 2014, Nritygarm Organization http://www.nrityagram.org/soul/dream/dream.htm,

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

“Man on Bridge” pp. 90-91
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

"A Hunger Artist"
The Complete Stories (1971)

The Fifth Revelation, Chapter 13

[Haggard, Ted, Simple Prayers for a Powerful Life, Regal Books, September 2002, p. 109, ISBN 0830730559]

Lori Lentrall, in Secrets of an Undercover Agent (2008)

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 15, “Ososolyeh” (pp. 211-212)

Introduction
1960s, The Art of the Soluble, 1967

Section 68
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 10 : The Fear-Phantom

Witches.
Table Talk (1689)

1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)

Part 1, Section 4
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

The City and Man, p. 5 (1964)

Who is Loyal to America? (1947)

Refusing to recant his ideas, after being imprisoned in the Tower of London for expressing his ideas on religious freedoms (1668 or 1669), as quoted in William Penn, America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace http://www.quaker.org/wmpenn.html by Jim Powell.

Toll the Hounds (2008)

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 31, “Dominoes Fall” (p. 322)

Speaking Out (2006)

The Second Book of Ovid's Art of Love, lines 706–707.

21 September 1747
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Peter Plymley's Letters (1808), Letter V

Laissez faire, telle devrait être la devise de toute puissance publique, depuis que le monde est civilisé ... Détestable principe que celui de ne vouloir grandir que par l'abaissement de nos voisins! Il n'y a que la méchanceté et la malignité du coeur de satisfaites dans ce principe, et l’intérêt y est opposé. Laissez faire, morbleu! Laissez faire!!
Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson. Diary of René de Voyer, (1736); As quoted in J.M. Keynes, 1926, "The End of Laissez Faire". Argenson's Mémoirs were published only in 1858, ed. Jannet, Tome V, p. 362. See A. Oncken (Die Maxime Laissez faire et laissez passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden, 1866)
Alternative translation:
Laissez faire ought to be the motto of every public authority
Quoted in: Mark Skousen. The Making of Modern Economics, (2009), p. 48

Ed Harris, "Boris bites Herr legs...: The MP for Henley does his bit for Anglo-German diplomacy", Evening Standard, 4 May 2006, p. 9.
On his tackle on German midfielder Maurizio Gaudino in a charity football match.
2000s, 2006

"Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," 1986, as reported by National Catholic Reporter
1980s

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29

Heretics and Heresies (1874)

Source: A Backward Glance http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200271.txt (1934), Ch. 8

Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798)

In a 1830 letter to James David Forbes, as found in Life and letters of James David Forbes, p. 40.

Comments on the government's proposed Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bill, 2 August 2005

LDS General Conference (October 1964)
Context: The rising sun can dispel the darkness of night, but it cannot banish the blackness of malice, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness from the hearts of humanity. Happiness and peace will come to earth only as the light of love and human compassion enter the souls of men.
It was for this purpose that Christ, the Son of righteousness, 'with healing in his wings,' came in the Meridian of Time. Through him wickedness shall be overcome, hatred, enmity, strife, poverty, and war abolished. This will be accomplished only by a slow but never-failing process of changing men's mental and spiritual attitude. The ways and habits of the world depend upon the thoughts and soul-convictions of men and women. If, therefore, we would change the world, we must first change people's thoughts. Only to the extent that men desire peace and brotherhood can the world be made better. No peace even though temporarily obtained, will be permanent, whether to individuals or nations, unless it is built upon the solid foundation of eternal principles.

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 2: "The Awakening of Asia" This passage uses phrases from his earlier work The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. St. Vincent De Paul cautioned his disciples to deport themselves so that the poor "will forgive them the bread you give them."

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 514
Context: A man can reach the roof of a house by stone stairs or a ladder or a rope-ladder or a rope or even by a bamboo pole. But he cannot reach the roof if he sets foot now on one and now on another. He should firmly follow one path. Likewise, in order to realize God a man must follow one path with all his strength. But you must regard other views as so many paths leading to God. You should not feel that your path is the only right path and that other paths are wrong. You mustn't bear malice toward others.

1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)
Context: Several centuries ago the greatest writer in history described the two most menacing clouds that hang over human government and human society as "malice domestic and fierce foreign war." We are not rid of these dangers but we can summon our intelligence to meet them. Never was there more genuine reason for Americans to face down these two causes of fear. "Malice domestic" from time to time will come to you in the shape of those who would raise false issues, pervert facts, preach the gospel of hate, and minimize the importance of public action to secure human rights or spiritual ideals. There are those today who would sow these seeds, but your answer to them is in the possession of the plain facts of our present condition.

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)
Context: Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people than the fact of our assembling here for the purpose we have today. Harmless, beautiful, proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace today is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow citizens and ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then, the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races, white and black. In view, then, of the past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.

Facebook post in response to detractors, https://www.facebook.com/GovernorMigunaMiguna/posts/562185893970795,2016
2016
Context: In other words, the inept and malicious propaganda against me will not work. Money has never won any elections. Cartel propaganda fueled by evil, lies and malice will not emerge victorious against righteousness, integrity and vision. I represent hope and a fully liberated and cleaned up Nairobi while the cartels are determined to protect and fortify the rotten, corrupt and exploitative status quo.

Sermon (18 February 1498) http://books.google.com/books?id=92QaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA26&dq=%22savonarola+asserted+in+his+sermon+on%22&hl=en&ei=i1uNTYXyFMPH0QGf682zCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22savonarola%20asserted%20in%20his%20sermon%20on%22&f=false, as translated in History of the Popes (1901) by Ludwig Pastor, as translated by Frederick Ignatius Antobus, Vol. 6, p. 26
Context: The Pope may err, and that in two ways, either because he is erroneously informed, or from malice. As to the latter cause we leave that to the judgment of God, and believe rather that he has been misinformed. In our own case I can prove that he has been falsely persuaded. Therefore any one who obstinately upholds the excommunication and affirms that I ought not to preach these doctrines is fighting against the kingdom of Christ, and supporting the kingdom of Satan, and is himself a heretic, and deserves to be excluded from the Christian community.

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Political Thoughts and Reflections

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)
Context: This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression—those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about—there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order.

"The Prophet" (1841)
Poems

"The Vision of Sin", sec. 5 (1842)

Audio lecture "Beyond Theology"

Introduction
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
Context: Since men in their endeavors behave, on the whole, not just instinctively, like the brutes, nor yet like rational citizens of the world according to some agreed-on plan, no history of man conceived according to a plan seems to be possible, as it might be possible to have such a history of bees or beavers. One cannot suppress a certain indignation when one sees men’s actions on the great world-stage and finds, beside the wisdom that appears here and there among individuals, everything in the large woven together from folly, childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness. In the end, one does not know what to think of the human race, so conceited in its gifts.

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)
Context: The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor.... It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain. Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed. It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

Source: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I
Context: This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.

Book X
The Columbiad (1807)
Context: Here then, said Hesper, with a blissful smile,
Behold the fruits of thy long years of toil.
To yon bright borders of Atlantic day
Thy swelling pinions led the trackless way,
And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,
To trace new seas and happy nations rear;
Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurl'd
Have waved at last in union o'er the world. Then let thy steadfast soul no more complain
Of dangers braved and griefs endured in vain,
Of courts insidious, envy's poison'd stings,
The loss of empire and the frown of kings;
While these broad views thy better thoughts compose
To spurn the malice of insulting foes;
And all the joys descending ages gain,
Repay thy labors and remove thy pain.

Source: Discourses Concerning Government (1689), Ch. 3, Sect. 3.
Context: If these rules have not been well observed in the first constitution, or from the changes of times, corruption of manners, insensible encroachments, or violent usurpations of princes, have been rendered ineffectual, and the people exposed to all the calamities that may be brought upon them by the weakness, vices, and malice of the prince, or those who govern him, I confess the remedies are more difficult and dangerous; but even in those cases they must be tried. Nothing can be feared that is worse than what is suffered, or must in a short time fall upon those who are in this condition. They who are already fallen into all that is odious, shameful, and miserable, cannot justly fear. When things are brought to such a pass, the boldest counsels are the most safe; and if they must perish who lie still, and they can but perish who are most active, the choice is easily made. Let the danger be never so great, there is a possibility of safety, whilst men have life, hands, arms, and courage to use them; but that people must certainly perish, who tamely suffer themselves to be oppressed, either by the injustice, cruelty, and malice of an ill magistrate, or by those who prevail upon the vices and infirmities of weak princes. It is in vain to say, that this may give occasion to men of raising tumults, or civil war; for tho' these are evils, yet they are not the greatest of evils. Civil war, in Macchiavel's account, is a disease; but tyranny is the death of a state. Gentle ways are first to be used, and it is best if the work can be done by them; but it must not be left undone, if they fail. It is good to use supplications, advices, and remonstrances; but those who have no regard to justice, and will not hearken to counsel, must be constrained. It is folly to deal otherwise with a man who will not be guided by reason, and a magistrate who despises the law; or rather, to think him a man, who rejects the essential principle of a man; or to account him a magistrate, who overthrows the law by which he is a magistrate. This is the last result; but those nations must come to it, which cannot otherwise be preserved.

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017)

Speech to the annual dinner of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (29 June 1939), quoted in The Times (30 June 1939), p. 9
Foreign Secretary

Martin Seymour-Smith, Guide to Modern World Literature, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, [1973] 1975), vol. 1, p. 333.
About

Aleph (2011)

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)

Chap. 16 : See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.
"The Vision of Sin", sec. 5 (1842)

Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross, p. 3

The Dusty Hat (p. 202)
Short Fiction, Three Moments of an Explosion (2015)

Quoted in Questions & Answers, Share International https://www.share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2018/2018-10.htm#q-n-a (October 2018)
Share International Magazine

Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 15 (p. 391; spoken by the Devil)

As quoted in, but without a documented source: Joseph Romanella (2012): Adam's Dream: Is Everything We Think, Believe, and Perceive Real—or Is It All Imaginary? https://books.google.de/books?id=vjQvJ1EITDkC&pg=PR30&lpg=PR30&dq=The+truth+is+incontrovertible.+Malice+may+attack+it,+ignorance+may+deride+it,+but+in+the+end,+there+it+is.+source&source=bl&ots=2z1rN6iBG6&sig=ACfU3U20jzEJtXfaAFYwx1K2zhzOOFzkog&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQuemItuLpAhUNxqYKHR_LDccQ6AEwAnoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=The%20truth%20is%20incontrovertible.%20Malice%20may%20attack%20it%2C%20ignorance%20may%20deride%20it%2C%20but%20in%20the%20end%2C%20there%20it%20is.%20source&f=false, page xxx. ISBN: 978-1-4525-0823-8 (sc). ISBN: 978-1-4525-0824-5 (e). Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America: Balboa Press, a division of Hay House.
Disputed

Leopold II, The Whole Story https://odysee.com/@BelgianCongo:3/Leopold-II-Het-Hele-Verhaal-Aflevering-1:1 King Leopold I to his son Prince Leopold II.

Source: All That Matters (1922), p.11 - The Call, stanza 2.

The Bonhoeffer Reader https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Bonhoeffer_Reader/CNZgAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA766, p. 766
Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), On Stupidity