
“Every state, like every theology, assumes man to be fundamentally bad and wicked.”
As quoted in Michael Bakunin (1937), E.H. Carr, p. 453
A collection of quotes on the topic of wick, men, man, people.
“Every state, like every theology, assumes man to be fundamentally bad and wicked.”
As quoted in Michael Bakunin (1937), E.H. Carr, p. 453
“She was a wild, wicked slip of a girl. She burned too brightly for this world.”
Variant: She burned too bright for this world.
Source: The quote is attributed to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, but only first part appears in book. https://books.google.pl/books?id=Aiye9MLNh9EC&q=wild%2C+wicked+slip#v=snippet&q=wild%2C%20wicked%20slip&f=false
Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.
Canto III, lines 40–42 (tr. Mark Musa).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
Disputed, Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.
"On Civil Disobedience", April 15th, 1961
1960s
A Collection of Essays, pp. 65-66
Charles Dickens (1939)
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
“… the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.”
Variant: A past tense, future perfect kind of night.
Source: White Teeth (2000)
Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 70
1910s
Source: Magic Bleeds
“Oh, what a wicked world it is that drives a man to sin.”
Source: The Last Don
“This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is wicked distraction.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Something wicked this way comes”
Variant: By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Source: Macbeth
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.”
“The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.”
1910s
Source: Quoting Plato, as translated by Abraham Arden Brill, "The Interpretation of Dreams" https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Freud_-_The_interpretation_of_dreams.djvu/511 (1913 edition), p.493
"The Doctrine of Free Will"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)
Extract from the Orderly Book of the army under command of Washington, dated at Head Quarters, in the city of New York (3 August 1770); reported in American Masonic Register and Literary Companion, Volume 1 https://www.thefederalistpapers.org/founders/washington/george-washington-the-foolish-and-wicked-practice-of-profane-cursing-and-swearing (1829), p. 163
1770s
To which may be replied,
1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)
Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
"The Doctrine of Free Will"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)
As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, iv. 50.
"Secrets Known Only to the Inner Elites", in his political journal The Campaigner (May-June 1978), p. 64.
Interview with Irwin Ross, September 1957;If there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence. Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (2005), p. 385
1950s
"How Not To Better Social Conditions" in Review of Reviews (January 1897), p. 39
1890s
Letter to his brother, as quoted in The Age of Napoleon (2002) by J. Christopher Herold, p. 8
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)
Source: 1910s, Fear God and Take Your Own Part (1916), p. 26
Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VIII : The New York Governorship
Justine or The Misfortunes of Virtue (1787)
1920s, What I Believe (1925)
Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 475
Letter from Oliver Cowder to W.W. Phelps (Letter I), (September 7, 1834). Published in Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, Vol. I. No. 1. Kirtland, Ohio, October, 1834. Published in Letters by Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps on the Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Liverpool, 1844.
“No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.”
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.
II, line 83.
Compare: "There is a method in man’s wickedness, — It grows up by degrees
Beaumont and Fletcher, A King and No King, Act v, scene 4.
Satires, Satire II
1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
"Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?", in Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter, part II (11 November 1954)
1950s
Foreword http://www.bartleby.com/55/100.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)
Joanna Denny (2006) Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306814749, p. 175.
1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: One of the most important things to secure for him is the right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against anybody of our fellow- citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because of the creed he professes. This applies to Jew and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to the man who would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed against men because of their religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accomplished anything but harm. This was true in the days of the ‘Know-Nothing’ and Native-American parties in the middle of the last century; and it is just as true to-day. Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Constitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution.
Letter to Brigadier-General Nelson, 20 August 1778, in Ford's Writings of George Washington (1890), vol. VII, p. 161. Part of this is often attached to a fragment of a letter to John Armstrong of 11 March 1782; it is also often prefaced with the spurious "governing without God" sentence, as this 1867 example from Henry Wilson (Testimonies of American Statesmen and Jurists to the Truths of Christianity) shows:
It is impossible to govern the world without God. It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits and humbly implore his protection and favor. I am sure there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency which was so often manifested during the revolution; or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of Him, who is alone able to protect them. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.
1770s
Context: It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful to contemplate, that after two years' manoeuvring and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes, that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation, both armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and that which was the offending party in the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. But it will be time enough for me to turn preacher, when my present appointment ceases…
1910s, Nobel lecture (1910)
Context: In new and wild communities where there is violence, an honest man must protect himself; and until other means of securing his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him to surrender his arms while the men who are dangerous to the community retain theirs. He should not renounce the right to protect himself by his own efforts until the community is so organized that it can effectively relieve the individual of the duty of putting down violence. So it is with nations. Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations. As things are now, such power to command peace throughout the world could best be assured by some combination between those great nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves of committing aggressions. The combination might at first be only to secure peace within certain definite limits and on certain definite conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a combination would have earned his place in history for all time and his title to the gratitude of all mankind.
I, 8
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer.
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.
Letter to Erastus Corning and Others https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln6/1:569?rgn=div1;view=fulltext (12 June 1863) in "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 6" (The Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953), p. 266
1860s
Context: Long experience has shown that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the constitution, sanction this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy.
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Source: Burn for Me
“We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.”
Variant: We’re the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.
Source: Ender's Game
“To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness”
Source: Flashman at the Charge
“It's a wicked life, but what the hell, the stars ain't falling down.”
Source: Lyrics: 1962-2001
“We all have faults, mine is being wicked.”
“"You got types?"
"Only you, darling-lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."”
Nora & Nick
Source: The Thin Man (1929)
“The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.”