Evil famous quotes
04-09-2025
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Out of evil comes good, however, and the confusion of tongues gave rise to 'the ancient practice of Masons conversing without the use of speech.'
-- A. E. Waite -
Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it.
-- A. E. Waite -
There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.
-- A. J. Muste -
The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.
-- A. J. Muste -
Let us be done with the notion that religion is confined to petty pieties and small constraints. All too often people who have possessed these pieties have wrought great evil.
-- A. Powell Davies -
The beneficial effect of state intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and so to speak, visible, while its evil effects are gradual and indirect and lay out of sight ... Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favor upon governmental intervention.
-- A. V. Dicey -
Now you see. We are all fugitives. We have always been fugitives from the void. Whatever comfort, whatever power we gain from outside of ourselves diminishes us -- because comfort and power, unless they are won from the void inside of us, are illusions that make us forget the emptyness that carries us. When we forget that, we believe we deserve comfort and power and so are capable of any evil. We deserve nothing but what we make of ourselves. We deserve nothing else. And when we understand that, then nothing is enough.
-- A.A. Attanasio -
There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker
-- Aaron Allston -
Mischief and malice grow on the same branch of the tree of evil.
-- Aaron Hill -
It [idolatry] nourishes mans ambition to domineer over his fellow man. Idolatry, therefore, is the source of all social and moral evil in the world.
-- Abba Eban -
There is evil in the world, but it can be overcome through repentance Âand aspiration, and therein lies the true meaning and adventure of life.
-- Abba Hillel Silver -
We're never going to be able to get rid of terrorism, because there is always going to be evil in the world.
-- Abdallah II -
When the inward is good the outward is also inevitably so, for the outward always follows the inward, whether good or evil.
-- Abdullah ibn Alawi al-Haddad -
I love the saliheen (pious people) even though I’m not one of them, and I hate the taliheen (evil people) even though I (may be) worse than them.
-- Abdullah ibn Mubarak -
But all this world is like a tale we hear - Men's evil, and their glory, disappear.
-- Abolqasem Ferdowsi -
I turn to right and left, in all the earth I see no signs of justice, sense or worth: A man does evil deeds, and all his days Are filled with luck and universal praise; Another's good in all he does - he dies A wretched, broken man whom all despise.
-- Abolqasem Ferdowsi -
I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accomodate, I don't accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
There is something so ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way off as to render the whole subject with which they are connected easily turned into ridicule.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Getting used to our blessings is one of the most important non-evil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering.
-- Abraham Maslow -
Love of Allah gives us spiritual life; hope in His Reward is the greatest incentive to do good; and fear of His Wrath stops us from evil.
-- Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi -
Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.
-- Abu Bakr -
Be good to others, that will protect you against evil.
-- Abu Bakr -
To fight against the infidels is Jihad; but to fight against your evil self is greater Jihad.
-- Abu Bakr -
Piety is the most solid goodness, and the vilest of what is evil is vice.
-- Abu Bakr -
The intelligent person is not one who merely knows what is good and what is bad. The intelligent person is one who, when he sees what is good, follows it, and when he sees evil, shuns it.
-- Abu Nu`aym -
My painting represents the victory of the forces of darkness and peace over the powers of light and evil.
-- Ad Reinhardt -
Even papists could not see that a moral evil was detained in the soul through its physical connection with the body; and that it required the dissolution of this physical connection before the moral contagion could be removed.
-- Adam Clarke -
I originally passed on 'Girls' because I thought TV was evil.
-- Adam Driver -
While some misuse their freedom to perpetrate evil, millions respond by feeling compelled to use their freedom to do good.
-- Adam Hamilton -
If 'everything happens for a reason,' then every act of evil is ultimately God's doing.
-- Adam Hamilton -
I wouldn't say jamie is an evil genius. I'm not sure he's evil and I'm not sure he's a genius.
-- Adam Savage -
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
-- Adlai E. Stevenson -
To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing.
-- Adolf Eichmann -
The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
-- Adolf Hitler -
I am liberating man from the degrading chimera known as `conscience'.
-- Adolf Hitler -
We need not fear the judgement of history. Who, after all, speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?
-- Adolf Hitler -
An evil nature wielding great authority brings misfortune upon the community.
-- Aeschines -
A defeat in war is not the greatest of all evils; but when the defeat has been inflicted by enemies who are not worthy of you, then the calamity is doubled.
-- Aeschines -
Truly upon mortals cometh swift of foot their evil and his offence upon him that trespasseth against Right.
-- Aeschylus -
I would rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils.
-- Aeschylus -
The evils of mortals are manifold; nowhere is trouble of the same wing seen.
-- Aeschylus -
To be effective, morality has to be reasoned (or worked out). To want ("vouloir", Fr.) to repress evil only by coercion, and to obtain morality by a sort of training with the help of constraint, without motivating it from within, is to make it an unnatural result, devoided of lastind value.
-- African Spir -
There is too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I must concede you the Devil. God doesn't really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We're so busy punishing ourselves.
-- Agatha Christie -
Evil never goes unpunished, Monsieur. But the punishment is sometimes secret.
-- Agatha Christie -
To me, this world is nothing but evil, and my own evil just happened to come out cause of the circumstances of what I was doing.
-- Aileen Wuornos -
To give up doing evil is more important than making merit.
-- Ajahn Chah -
The mind of one who practises doesn't run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don't enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer.
-- Ajahn Chah -
I think that Americans should gradually begin to adopt positive behavior rather than doing evil. They should not expect an immediate reaction in return for their positive measures. It will take time.
-- Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -
The colour grey makes you feel uneasy, makes things seem complicated and hopeless, it upsets the notion of black and white. Good and evil? There is no such thing. There is a little good and a evil, a little black and a little white. Grey is not an attractive colour, but perhaps it is the one that describes the world most accurately.
-- Akif Pirincci -
When you have a bad suspicion about a Muslim in your heart, you should increase your consideration toward him and make dua for him. This way you will infuriate Satan and will be able to drive him away. Because of this, Satan will be reluctant to put evil thoughts into your heart, afraid that you would increase your consideration towards your brother and will make dua for him again.
-- Al-Ghazali -
Understand that for every rule which I have mentioned from the Quran, the Devil has one to match it, which he puts beside the proper rule to cause error.
-- Al-Ghazali -
Evil is the moment when I lack the strength to be true to the Good that compels me.
-- Alain Badiou -
Evil is the interruption of a truth by the pressure of particular or individual interests.
-- Alain Badiou -
One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.
-- Alan Chambers -
The purpose of life is not to fight against evil and misfortune; it is to unveil magnificence.
-- Alan Cohen -
The worst mistake you can make is underrating your enemy. Assuming that they're evil - I think it's a terrible thing to do.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
I don't know where hell is ... another dimension, perhaps, or another plane of reality. As for getting there ... it's a choice between sinning and being tricked by demons It's a plane of evil ... despair ... and magic of the foulest kind.
-- Alan Grant -
We stand on no high moral plateau in our time. We are, in fact, plumbing depths of depravity unknown to our ancestors--and whatever may have been the evil in which they engaged, at least they were willing to acknowledge the principle by which their evil was condemned. We have even turned our back on the principle.
-- Alan Keyes -
A callous disregard for the claims of innocent human life is the heart and soul of the evil of terrorism.
-- Alan Keyes -
Purely historical thought is nihilistic; it wholeheartedly accepts the evil of history.
-- Albert Camus -
Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.
-- Albert Camus -
Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil.
-- Albert Camus -
The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything
-- Albert Einstein -
The world is not threatened by evil people, but by those who allow evil to take place.
-- Albert Einstein -
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evil.
-- Albert Einstein -
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
-- Albert Einstein -
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future.
-- Albert Einstein -
The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.
-- Albert Einstein -
Good is that which promotes life, evil is that which destroys life
-- Albert Schweitzer -
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.
-- Albert Schweitzer -
Reverence for Life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting, and enhancing life and that to destroy, harm, or to hinder life is evil. Affirmation of the world - that is affirmation of the will to live, which appears in phenomenal forms all around me - is only possible for me in that I give myself out for other life.
-- Albert Schweitzer -
An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.
-- Alberto Moravia -
If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.
-- Albrecht Durer -
Complete prohibition of all chemical mind changers can be decreed, but cannot be enforced, and tends to create more evils than it cures.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.
-- Aldous Huxley -
Generalities are intellectually necessary evils.
-- Aldous Huxley -
It is only when it takes the form of physical addiction that sex is evil. It is also evil when it manifests itself as a way of satisfying the lust for power or the climber's craving for position and social distinction.
-- Aldous Huxley -
The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself.
-- Aldous Huxley -
For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.
-- Aldous Huxley -
The greatest, like Rembrandt, paint a gallant, a hag, and a carcass with equal passion and rapture; they love the truth as it is. Â They do not admit that anything can be ugly or evil; its existence justifies itself. Â This is because they know themselves to be part of an harmonious unity; to disdain any item of it would be to blaspheme the whole. Â The Thelemite is able to revel in any experience soever; in each he recognizes the tokens of ultimate Truth. Â It is surely obvious, even intellectually, that all phenomena are interdependent, and therefore involve each other.
-- Aleister Crowley -
The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.
-- Aleister Crowley -
An important aspect of the Eurasian worldview is an absolute denial of Western civilization. In the opinion of the Eurasians, the West with its ideology of liberalism is an absolute evil.
-- Aleksandr Dugin -
With such global events looming over us like mountains, nay, like entire mountain ranges, it may seem incongruous and inappropriate to recall that the primary key to our being or non-being resides in each individual human heart, in the heart's preference for specific good or evil. Yet this remains true even today, and it is, in fact, the most reliable key we have. The social theories that promised so much have demonstrated their bankruptcy, leaving us at a dead end.
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God.
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
To reject this inhuman Communist ideology is simply to be a human being. Such a rejection is more than a political act. It is a protest of our souls against those who would have us forget the concepts of good and evil.
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
I don't think there's such a thing as an evil animal.
-- Alex Colville -
Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest ***** in the valley
-- Alex Garland -
The cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, not suppression.
-- Alexander Berkman -
For, when the credit of a country is in any degree questionable, it never fails to give on extravagant premium, in one shape or another, upon all the loans it has occasion to make. Nor does the evil end here; the same disadvantage must be sustained upon whatever is to be bought on terms of future payment. From this constant necessity of borrowing and buying dear, it is easy to conceive how immensely the expenses of a nation, in a course of time, will be augmented by an unsound state of the public credit.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
What so pure, which envious tongues will spare? Some wicked wits have libell'd all the fair, With matchless impudence they style a wife, The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life; A bosom serpent, a domestic evil, A night invasion, and a mid-day devil; Let not the wise these sland'rous words regard, But curse the bones of ev'ry living bard.
-- Alexander Pope
