Within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or later it works its way outside us—it may be in the vitiation that breeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings us into better striving.
 George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876). copy citation

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Author George Eliot
Source Daniel Deronda
Topic evil work
Date 1876
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7469/pg7469-images.html

Context

“With your quickest, utmost effort, it seems impossible that you could have done anything to save him. That momentary murderous will cannot, I think, have altered the course of events. Its effect is confined to the motives in your own breast. Within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or later it works its way outside us—it may be in the vitiation that breeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings us into better striving. "I am saved from robbing others—there are others—they will have everything—they will have what they ought to have. I knew that some time before I left town. You do not suspect me of wrong desires about those things?" She spoke hesitatingly.
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