Evil

Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin. ~ Aesop

Evil is a term used to indicate acts or qualities involving needless or wanton harm or destruction, or the deliberate violation of some accepted moral codes of behavior. The philosophical questions which arise among various perceptions and definitions of the nature of evil and virtue are a primary focus of most ethical and religious systems of thought. In religion, ethics, philosophy, and psychology "good and evil" is a very common dichotomy.

Evils draw men together. Aristotle

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

A

• Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer.
  • Felix Adler, Life and Destiny (1913), Section 9 : Ethical Outlook

• Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.
  • Aesop, "The Swallow and the Other Birds" (c. 6th century BC).

• One who enters the places of evil repute has no right to complain against a man who speaks ill of him.
  • Ali, A Hundred Sayings

• One thing I know, I hold it ever true,
  The evil-doer evil shall endure.
  • Archilochus, quoted in To Autolycus, Book 2, Chap. 37 by Theophilus of Antioch

• What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
  • Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (1963), ch. 2.

• Evils draw men together.
  • Aristotle, in Rhetoric Book I, 1362.b39: Quoting a proverb

An evil deed... is like fire smoldering in the ashes, which burns the fool. ~ H.P. Blavatsky

• Leibniz believed the universe is the expression of Perfect Reason. Therefore, it must be the best of all possible worlds. All apparent evil would be transformed by a larger view of the universe.
  • Albert Edwin Avey, Handbook in the History of Philosophy. New York: Barnes & Noble. 1954. p. 151. 

B

I shall shed my light over dark evil.
For the dark things cannot stand the light[.] ~ Alfred Bester

• The distribution of the world's resources and the settled unity of the peoples of the world are in reality one and the same thing, for behind all modern wars lies a fundamental economic problem. Solve that and wars will very largely cease....Unity, peace and security will come through the recognition — intelligently assessed—of the evils which have led to the present world situation, and then through the taking of those wise, compassionate and understanding steps which will lead to the establishing of right human relations, to the substitution of cooperation for the present competitive system, and by the education of the masses in every land as to the nature of true goodwill and its hitherto unused potency.
  What at this moment appears to prevent world unity... ? The answer is not hard to find and involves all nations: nationalism, capitalism, competition, blind stupid greed.The mass of men need arousing to see that good comes to all men alike and not just to a few privileged groups, and to learn also that "hatred ceases not by hatred but that hatred ceases by love". This love is not a sentiment, but practical goodwill, expressing itself through individuals, in communities and among nations.
  The world economic council (or whatever body represents the resources of the world) must free itself from fraudulent politics, capitalistic influence and its devious scheming; it must set the resources of the earth free for the use of humanity. This will be a lengthy task but it will be possible when world need is better appreciated. An enlightened public opinion will make the decisions of the economic council practical and possible. Sharing and cooperation must be taught instead of greed and competition.
  • Alice Bailey in Problems Of Humanity, Chapter VI - The Problem of International Unity (1944)

• The major weapon now being used by the combined Forces of Evil is chaos, disruption, lack of established security, and consequent fear. . . . The entire rhythm of international thinking has to be altered, and that constitutes a slow and arduous task; the evil personalities which, in every country, are responsible for the chaos and uncertainty, have eventually to be replaced by those who can work in co-operation with the rhythm of the seventh ray, and thus produce ordered beauty.
  • Alice Bailey, The Externalization of the Hierarchy, p. 668, (1957)

• Materialism and Spirituality: There are today three major human trends: First of all, a trend towards a spiritual and free way of life; secondly, a trend towards intellectual unfoldment; and lastly, a potent trend towards material living and aggression. At present, the last of these innate tendencies is in the saddle, with the second, the intellectual attitude, throwing its weight upon the side of the material goals. A relatively small group is throwing the weight of human aspiration upon the side of the spiritual values.
  • Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation Of The Hierarchy, Section Two, The General World Picture, part 5, p. 183, (1957)

• The war between the pairs of opposites — materialism and spirituality — is raging fiercely. Only as men turn away from material aggression and towards spiritual objectives will the world situation change, and men — motivated by goodwill — force the aggressors back to their own place and release humanity from fear and force. We are today reaping the results of our own sowing. The recognition of the cause of the problem provides humanity with the opportunity to end it. The time has arrived in which it is possible to institute those changes in attitude which will bring an era of peace and goodwill, founded on right human relations.
  These two forces — materialism and spirituality — face each other. What will be the outcome? Will men arrest the evil and initiate a period of understanding, cooperation and right relationship, or will they continue the process of selfish planning and of economic and militant competition? This question must be answered by the clear thinking of the masses and by the calm and unafraid challenges of the democracies.
  • Alice A. Bailey, The Externalisation Of The Hierarchy, Section Two, The General World Picture, part 5, p. 183, (1957)

• Cursed is the man who dies but the evil done by him survives.
  • Abu Bakr, Abdul Jaleel Qureshi

• The difference between White and Black Magic lies in the motive which determines the Will; when that Will is set to benefit others, to help and bless all who come within its scope, then is the man a White Magician, and the results which he brings about by the exercise of his trained Will are beneficial, and aid the course of human evolution. He is ever expanding by such exercise.
  • Annie Besant, A Study in Consciousness: A contribution to the science of psychology (1904), Part II, Will, Desire and Emotion, Chapter 4. White and Black Magic.

• When the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution.
  • Annie Besant, A Study in Consciousness: A contribution to the science of psychology (1904), Part II, Will, Desire and Emotion, Chapter 4. White and Black Magic.

• The Will of the Black Magician has the strength of iron, pointing ever to the personal end, and it strikes against the great Will, and sooner or later must shiver itself into pieces against it.
  • Annie Besant, A Study in Consciousness: A contribution to the science of psychology (1904), Part II, Will, Desire and Emotion, Chapter 4. White and Black Magic.

• Alan Scott: I shall shed my light over dark evil.
  For the dark things cannot stand the light,
  The light of the Green Lantern!
  • Alfred Bester, Green Lantern, Vol.1, #9, (October 1943)

• Generals gathered in their masses
  just like witches at black masses.
  Evil minds that plot destruction,
  sorcerer of death's construction.
  • Black Sabbath War Pigs Paranoid written by Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward

• Evil power disappears
  Demons worry when the wizard is near
  He turns tears into joy
  Everyone's happy when the wizard walks by.
  • Black Sabbath The Wizard Black Sabbath (album) written by Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward

• There exists no spot on the earth, or in the sky, or in the sea, neither is there any in the mountain-clefts, where an evil deed does not bring trouble to the doer.
  ...Empty thy mind of evil, but fill it with good.
  ...People talk of the Devil. Every man has seen him; he is in every sinful heart. (April)
  • H.P. Blavatsky, Gems from the East, a Birthday Book of Precepts and Axioms, (1890)

• Even a good man sees evil days, as long as his good deeds have not ripened; but when they have ripened, then does the good man see happy days.
  ... By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself the evil is left undone...
  ...If thou hast done evil deeds, or if thou wouldst do them, thou mayest arise and run where'er thou wilt, but thou canst not free thyself of thy suffering.
  ... An evil deed does not turn on a sudden like curdling milk; it is like fire smoldering in the ashes, which burns the fool.
  ... An evil deed kills not instantly, as does a sword, but it follows the evil-doer into his next and still next rebirth. (May)
  • H.P. Blavatsky, Gems from the East, a Birthday Book of Precepts and Axioms, (1890)

• A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
  • Edmund Burke, Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 19th Feb. 1788.

• Yes, evil thrives on secrecy.
  • David Brin, Kiln People (2002), Chapter 19 (ISBN 0-765-34261-8, p. 191)

C

• The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
  • Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. II, ch. 4

• Evil is relative, Annalist. You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.
  • Glen Cook, The Black Company (1984), chapter 6

D

• As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.
  • Christopher Dawson, The Judgement of the Nations (1942), pp. 9-10.

• “There is evil! It's actual, like cement.

I can't believe it. I can't stand it.

Evil is not a view ... it's an ingredient in us. In the world. Poured over us, filtering into our bodies, minds, hearts, into the pavement itself.”

• Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots. ~ Eleanor Farjeon

It's no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing. ~ Eleanor Farjeon

• All evil in the world is the result of an imbalance between the people who benefit from shenanigans and the people who get screwed by shenanigans.
  • Cory Doctorow, Petard: A Tale of Just Deserts (2014), reprinted in Rich Horton (ed.), The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 (p. 317)

F

• It’s no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing.
  • Eleanor Farjeon, Gypsy and Ginger (1920).

• Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots.
  • Eleanor Farjeon, Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1922).

• Where two evils present, a wise administration, if there be room for an option, will choose the least.
  • J. Foster, in Case of Pressing Mariners (1743), 18 How. St. Tr. 1330; reported in Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904) by James William Norton-Kyshe, p. 91.

• It’s a little hard for me to know that I am “disordered” or again to quote Ratzinger, “that i am guilty of a moral evil” simply by fulfilling my sexual destiny as I see it. It’s…it’s hard for me to be told, to be told that I’m evil, because I think of myself as someone who is filled with love, whose only purpose in life was to achieve love, and who feels love for so much of nature and the world and for everything else and who like anybody decent and with education realizes that in order, to achieve and receive love, it’s a struggle.
  • Stephen Fry, Intelligence Squared (2009)

G

• There is not an evil which fails to bring benefit to some one.
  • Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, Genesis Rabbah, (1907), p. 77

• I must say that anyone who moved through those years [World War II] without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey must have been blind or wrong in the head.
  • William Golding, "Fable", in The Hot Gates (1965), p. 87

• “Evil” is first and foremost a religious notion. It means whatever a religion dislikes.
  • A. C. Grayling, Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), ISBN 0-19-517755-X, Chapter 9, "Evil"

H

• When the Prophet saw injustice, either on the part of men or on the part of Providence, he did not inquire closely into its causes, nor bend the knee to necessity, and judge the evil-doers leniently; nor again did he give himself up to despair, or doubt the strength of Righteousness, or the possibility of its victory. He simply complained, pouring out his soul in words of fire; then went his way again, fighting for his ideal, and full of hope that in time—perhaps even "at the end of time"—Righteousness would be lord over all the earth.
  • Ahad Ha'am, "Priest and Prophet" (1893) in Selected Essays (1904), p. 133.

• There surely is an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of Evil, in human nature, [that] one can.
  • Benjamin Haydon, diary entry (January 16, 1846), in The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. Willard Bissell Pope (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1963), Vol. 5, p. 511.
  • Sometimes misquoted as "There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil."

• Every man knows there are evils in this world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as what these evils are. But to most men one in particular stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this stands out with such startling vividness that they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them as the natural consequence of their own particular evil-in-chief.
  • Henry Hazlitt, Thinking As A Science (1916).

• It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final.
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (1962), Volume 1, p. 181

• The man who does evil to another does evil to himself,
  and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.
  • Hesiod, Works and Days (8th century BC), line 265, translated by Richard Lattimore.

• It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
  • Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1955).

• Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
  • Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955), Section 184.

• At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.
  • Aldous Huxley, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1952).

I

• Cease to do evil. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
  • Isaiah 1:16 ESV

K

• When we think of evil, we think of something violent or demonic, something filled with hatred and wretchedly hungry to devour the good. But what if evil eats a salad at lunch and is polite, speaking rationally with nice table manners?
  • John Kass, "Evil with salad and a nice red" (19 July 2015), Chicago Tribune, Illinois.

• Evil works best, not as a growling beast crouching in the darkness, but in a rational, scientific voice. It is the way it's always worked, the way it worked years ago, the way it works now.
  • John Kass, "Evil with salad and a nice red" (19 July 2015), Chicago Tribune, Illinois.

• Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.
  • Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Book III, Chapter 12.

• Our ideas on Evil. Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good is it an independent cause in nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering and death, and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote for every poison and her laws a reward for every suffering. The butterfly devoured by a bird becomes that bird, and the little bird killed by an animal goes into a higher form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal fitness of things, and hence cannot be called Evil in Nature. The real evil proceeds from human intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning man who dissociates himself from Nature. Humanity then alone is the true source of evil.
  Evil is the exaggeration of good, the progeny of human selfishness and greediness. Think profoundly and you will find that save death—which is no evil but a necessary law, and accidents which will always find their reward in a future life—the origin of every evil whether small or great is in human action, in man whose intelligence makes him the one free agent in Nature. It is not nature that creates diseases, but man... the chief cause of nearly two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power... is religion under whatever form and in whatever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches.
  • Koot Hoomi, The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter No. X, (1923)

• Fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.
  • Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed (1995), p. 7.

L

• Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them.
  • Lee Kuan Yew, as quoted in A talk with the man who made Singapore by Fareed Zakaria, 12 April 1994, The Baltimore Sun

• There was an evil in Pandora's box
  Beyond all other ones, yet it came forth
  In guise so lovely, that men crowded round
  And sought it as the dearest of all treasure.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) (1837), Vol. I, Chapter 2
  • Miss Landon, after listing its effects, concludes with 'The evil's name was Love'.

• He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.
  • Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks.

M

• It is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that lies in others.
  • Maurice Maeterlinck, Wisdom and Destiny (1898), translated by Alfred Sutro.

• Evil has nothing in common with life; it cannot create, since its power is purely negative. Evil is the schism of being; it is not true.
  • Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1796), Ch. IV

• He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was that evil? And ants? They killed. No, the jungle wasn't evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares.

  It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away. His killing that day would not have been evil if the dead soldiers hadn't been loved by mothers, sisters, friends, wives. Mellas understood that in destroying the fabric that linked those people, he had participated in evil, but this evil had hurt him as well. He also understood that his participation in evil, was a result of being human. Being human was the best he could do. Without man there would be no evil. But there was also no good, nothing moral built over the world of fact. Humans were responsible for it all. He laughed at the cosmic joke, but he felt heartsick.

  • Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, Ch. 19 (2010).

• The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
  • Rollo May, Freedom and Destiny (1981), Ch. 12, § 3.

• EVIL. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
  • H. L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques (1924), p. 203.

• The whole Christian system, like every other similar system, goes to pieces upon the problem of evil. Its most adept theologians, attempting to reconcile the Heavenly Father of their theory with the dreadful agonies of man in His world, can only retreat behind Chrysostom's despairing maxim that "a comprehended God is no God."
  • H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods. 2 October 2006. p. 272. ISBN 9780801885365.  (1st edition 1930)

• He that has light within his own cleer brest
  May sit i'th center, and enjoy bright day,
  But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts
  Benighted walks under the mid-day Sun;
  Himself is his own dungeon.
  • John Milton, "A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634," lines 380–84, republished in The Works of John Milton (1931), vol. 1, part 1, p. 99. The title was changed to "Comus" for the stage version in 1737.

N

• Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today.
  Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.
  • Jawaharlal Nehru, The Unity of India : Collected Writings, 1937-1940 (1942), p. 280

• Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.
  • He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

P

• Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand on le fait par conscience.
  • Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it conscientiously.
  • Variant: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction (trans. W.F. Trotter)
  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1669) (# 894 or 895, depending on differing editions).

• Of two evils I have chosen the least.
  • Matthew Prior, "Imitation of Horace", a reference to E duobus malis, minimum eligendum, Cicero, De Officiis; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 92.

• I spent, I probably spent my whole life to understand what evil was, and more importantly, what can be done about it. It is strange pursuit in some ways for an academic, because academics talk about academic things. One thing you can say about evil is that whatever it is, it is not bloody well academic. It is not an intellectual issue, it is an existential issue. And, it is not an theoretical issue, it is an issue that deals with absolute nature of reality. And I guess sometimes I think that people would go in academia to shield themselves from having to ask questions about absolute nature of reality.
  • Jordan Peterson, Lecture "Tragedy vs Evil"

Is then he who has a clear argument from his Lord similar to him to whom his evil conduct is made fair-seeming; and they follow their low desires. ~ The Quran

• We are fascinated by evil. We watch dramatic representations of serial killers, psychopaths, and the kings of organized crime, gang members, rapists, contract killers, and spies. We voluntarily frighten and disgust ourselves with thrillers and horror films—and it is more than prurient curiosity.
  • Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order (2021), p. 358

Q

• It will not be in accordance with your vain desires nor the vain desires of the People of the Book. Whoever does evil, will be requited for it and will not find for himself besides God a guardian nor a savior.
  • Quran 4:123

• And I do not acquit myself. Indeed, the soul is a persistent enjoiner of evil, except those upon which my Lord has mercy. Indeed, my Lord is Forgiving and Merciful."
  • Quran 12:53

• The long run evil in the extreme will be the End of those who do evil; for that they rejected the Signs of God, and held them up to ridicule.
  • Qur'an 30:10

• And whatever (evil) misfortune befalls you, it is on account of what your hands have wrought and He pardons much. And you cannot escape in the earth, and besides God you have no protector nor helper.
  • Quran 42:30-31

• Is then he who has a clear argument from his Lord similar to him to whom his evil conduct is made fair-seeming; and they follow their low desires.
  • Quran 47:14

R

• Responding to evil
  A superior being does not render evil for evil,
  this is the maxim one should observe;
  the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct.
  (...)
  A noble soul will ever exercise compassion
  even towards those who enjoy injuring others.
  • Ramayana 6.115, Valmiki (Abridged, Translator: Roderick Hindery)

• The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
  • Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, (1966).

• ...there is a perpetual struggle between manifested chaos and the unmanifested. It is the struggle of the Forces of Light with the dark forces. Christ Himself actively resisted evil... he drove the merchants from the Temple, and all his severe accusations against the scribes and Pharisees... If we try to read objectively the words... attributed to Christ, we shall see a Teaching which is severe in its mercy. Therefore, the words "resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also... If this law of Karma, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," is inevitable and exact justice, it by no means follows that we ourselves, personally, should attempt to fulfil it in this way. If we do so, we shall never emerge from the magic circle of karma. Indeed, we must forgive our personal enemies, as who knows but that the blow one receives is a return blow, well-deserved under the law of Karma? By returning such a blow with another and with a feeling of revenge in our heart, we do not outlive this karma, but we continue and even intensify it in the worst way for ourselves. Moreover, by forgiving our enemies we decrease the amount of evil in space and become immune against many blows. Similarly, let us understand the words "Love thine enemies." However, with all this, we must resist evil, if we do not want to be entirely overwhelmed by it. (26 May 1934)
  • Helena Roerich, Letters of Helena Roerich Volume I: 1929-1935

• Now let us imagine the situation of Moses if he had not resisted evil and had allowed the worst and crudest elements to destroy the best—the one which was able to assimilate the ideas of morality and order. What would have happened to his task? His duty as a leader and an earthly lawgiver was to protect his people and to maintain order. Therefore, the resistance to evil was basically necessary. All teachings of antiquity declare active resistance to evil. Thus, the well-known sage and lawgiver of China, Confucius, used to say, "God for good, but for evil—justice."
  • Helena Roerich, Letters of Helena Roerich Volume I: 1929-1935 (26 May 1934)

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. ~ The Shadow

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. ~ Socrates

S

• Evil is not a political or scientific category. But, after Auschwitz, who could doubt that it exists, and that it manifested itself in the hate-driven genocide carried out by the Nazi regime? However, noting this fact does not permit us to circumvent our responsibility by blaming everything on a demonic Hitler. The evil manifested in the Nazi ideology was not without its precursors. There was a tradition behind the rise of this brutal ideology and the accompanying loss of moral inhibition. Above all, it needs to be said that the Nazi ideology was something that people supported at the time and that they took part in putting into effect.
  • Gerhard Schröder, speech on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, January 25, 2005

• I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: a man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.
  • Rod Serling interview Los Angeles Times (1967)^{[specific citation needed]}

• Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.
  • The Shadow, in Introductory words to the broadcast radio episodes of The Shadow, as quoted in Radio's Golden Age : The Programs and the Personalities (1966) by Frank Buxton and Bill Owen; also in Orson Welles : A Biography (1985) by Barbara Leaming, p. 123.

• False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
  • Socrates, Phaedo, 115e, Plato's account of Socrates' death.

• The seeds of evil usually germinated in the footprints of people who knew how everybody else ought to behave and felt the need to tell them so.
  • Charles Stross, Iron Sunrise (2004), Chapter 18

T

• I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.
  • Edward Teller, as quoted in The Martians of Science : Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century (2006) by Istvan Hargittai, p. 251.

• Evil comes from unchecked power.
  • Sheri S. Tepper, Sideshow (1992), ISBN 0-553-56098-0, p. 224

• (見ざる, 聞かざる, 言わざる?)
  • "See not, hear not, speak not"
  • "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"
  • Tōshō-gū shrine Three wise monkeys

• There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
  • Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), chapter 1, p. 98.

• We don't want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil.
  • Bishop Desmond Tutu, speech, 1985. Quoted in Equality, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1989.

V

• When the Devil is too busy, and Death's a bit too much, they call on me by name you see, for my special touch.
  • Voltaire, in his song When you're Evil.

W

• Between two evils, I generally like to pick the one I never tried before.
  • Mae West, Klondike Annie (1936) Sometimes quoted as: "When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."'.

Z

• In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then I too will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Until then, I will not wash my hands nor let them hang useless.
  • Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon (1972).

• The usual devastating put-downs imply that a person is basically bad, rather than that he is a person who sometimes does bad things. Obviously, there is a vast difference between a "bad" person and a person who does something bad.
  Besides, failure is an event, it is not a person — yesterday ended last night.
  • Variant: Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.
  • Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top (2000)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 239-41.

• Evil events from evil causes spring.
  • Aristophanes

• Souvent la peur d'un mal nous conduit dans un pire.
  • Often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse.
  • Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, L'Art Poétique (1674), I. 64.

• From envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.
  • Book of Common Prayer, Litany.

• The world, the flesh, and the devil.
  • Book of Common Prayer, Litany.

• I have wrought great use out of evil tools.
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act III, scene 1, line 49.

• The authors of great evils know best how to remove them.
  • Cato the Younger's Advice to the Senate to put all power into Pompey's hands. Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger.

• Como el hacer mal viene de natural cosecha, fácilmente se aprende el hacerle.
  • Inasmuch as ill-deeds spring up as a spontaneous crop, they are easy to learn.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Coloquio de los Perros.

• Ex malis eligere minima oportere.
  • Of evils one should choose the least.
  • Cicero, De Officiis (44 B.C.), Book III. 1. Same idea in Thomas á Kempis. Imit Christi. 312.

• Omne malum nascens facile opprimitur; inveteratum fit pleurumque robustius.
  • Every evil in the bud is easily crushed: as it grows older, it becomes stronger.
  • Cicero, Philippicæ, V. 11.

• Touch not; taste not; handle not.
  • Colossians, II. 21.

• Et tous maux sont pareils alors qu'ils sont extrêmes.
  • All evils are equal when they are extreme.
  • Pierre Corneille, Horace, III. 4.

• Superbia, invidia ed avarizia sono
  Le tre faville che hanno i cori accesi.
  • Three sparks—pride, envy, and avarice—have been kindled in all hearts.
  • Dante Alighieri, Inferno, VI. 74.

• E duobus malis minimum eligendum.
  • Of two evils choose the least.
  • Erasmus, Adages.

• Den Bösen sind sie los, die Bösen sind geblieben.
  • The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, I. 6. 174.

• But evil is wrought by want of Thought,
  As well as want of Heart!
  • Thomas Hood, The Lady's Dream, Stanza 16.

• Of two
  Evils we take the less.
  • Richard Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, Chapter LXXXI.

• Quid nos dura refugimus
  Ætas, quid intactum nefasti
  Liquimus?
  • What has this unfeeling age of ours left untried, what wickedness has it shunned?
  • Horace, Carmina, I. 35. 34.

• Magna inter molles concordia.
  • There is great unanimity among the dissolute.
  • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), II, 47.

• Fere fit malum malo aptissimum.
  • Evil is fittest to consort with evil.
  • Livy, Annales, I, 46.

• Notissimum quodque malum maxime tolerabile.
  • The best known evil is the most tolerable.
  • Livy, Annales, XXIII, 3.

• Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,
  And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,
  Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.
  • James Russell Lowell, Prometheus, line 263.

• Solent occupationis spe vel impune quædam scelesta committi.
  • Wicked acts are accustomed to be done with impunity for the mere desire of occupation.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus, Historia, XXX. 9.

• Que honni soit celui qui mal y pense.
  • Ménage. Ascribed to Tallemant in the Historiettes of Tallemant des Reaux, Volume I, p. 38. Second ed. Note in Third ed., corrects this. Honi soit qui mal y pense. Evil to him who evil thinks. Motto of the Order of the Garter. Established by Edward III, April 23, 1349. See Sir Walter Scott, Essay on Chivalry.

• Genus est mortis male vivere.
  • An evil life is a kind of death.
  • Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, III. 4. 75.

• Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt.
  • There are a thousand forms of evil; there will be a thousand remedies.
  • Ovid, Remedia Amoris, V. 26.

• Omnia perversas possunt corrumpere mentes.
  • All things can corrupt perverse minds.
  • Ovid, Tristium, II. 301.

• Hoc sustinete, majus ne veniat malum.
  • Endure this evil lest a worse come upon you.
  • Phaedrus, Fables, Book I. 2. 31.

• Pulchrum ornatum turpes mores pejus cœno collinunt.
  • Bad conduct soils the finest ornament more than filth.
  • Plautus, Mostellaria, I. 3. 133.

• Male partum male disperit.
  • Ill gotten is ill spent.
  • Plautus, Pœnulus, IV. 2. 22.

• E malis multis, malum, quod minimum est, id minimum est malum.
  • Out of many evils the evil which is least is the least of evils.
  • Plautus, Stichus, Act I. 2.

• Timely advis'd, the coming evil shun:
  Better not do the deed, than weep it done.
  • Matthew Prior, Henry and Emma, line 308.

• Of two evils I have chose the least.
  • Matthew Prior, Imitation of Horace, Book I, Epistle IX.

• Maledicus a malefico non distat nisi occasione.
  • An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.
  • Quintilian, De Institutione Oratorio, XII. 9. 9.

• Multitudes think they like to do evil; yet no man ever really enjoyed doing evil since God made the world.
  • John Ruskin, Stones of Venice, Volume I, Chapter II.

• Al mondo mal non e senza rimedio.
  • here is no evil in the world without a remedy.
  • Jacopo Sannazaro, Ecloga Octava.

• Das eben ist der Fluch der bösen That,
  Das sie fortzeugend immer Böses muss gebären.
  • The very curse of an evil deed is that it must always continue to engender evil.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Piccolomini, V. 1.

• Per scelera semper sceleribus certum est iter.
  • The way to wickedness is always through wickedness.
  • Seneca the Younger, Agamemnon, CXV.

• Si velis vitiis exui, longe a vitiorum exemplis recedendum est.
  • If thou wishest to get rid of thy evil propensities, thou must keep far from evil companions.
  • Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, CIV.

• Solent suprema facere securos mala.
  • Desperate evils generally make men safe.
  • Seneca the Younger, Œdipus, CCCLXXXVI.

• Serum est cavendi tempus in mediis malis.
  • It is too late to be on our guard when we are in the midst of evils.
  • Seneca the Younger, Thyestes, CCCCLXXXVII.

• Magna pars vulgi levis
  Odit scelus spectatque.
  • Most of the giddy rabble hate the evil deed they come to see.
  • Seneca the Younger, Troades, XI. 28.

• Mala mens, malus animus.
  • A bad heart, bad designs.
  • Terence, Andria, I. 1. 137.

• Aliud ex alio malum.
  • One evil rises out of another.
  • Terence, Eunuchus, V. 7. 17.

• But, by all thy nature's weakness,
  Hidden faults and follies known,
  Be thou, in rebuking evil,
  Conscious of thine own.
  • John Greenleaf Whittier, What the Voice Said, Stanza 15.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil; I observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape it, and with this I begin and end.
  • John Newton, p. 213.

• Nothing is to be esteemed evil which God and nature have fixed with eternal sanction.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 213.

• The cardinal method with faults is to overgrow them and choke them out with virtues.
  • John Bascom, p. 213.

• Nothing can work me damage except myself. The harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.
  • St. Bernard, p. 213.

Dialogue

World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door. ~ Nic Pizzolatto

• Marty Hart: Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?

Rust Cohle: No. I don't wonder, Marty. World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

• Nic Pizzolatto, "Who Goes There", True Detective, (February 9, 2014)

See also

• Good
• Good and evil
• Sin
• Vices
• Villain