Bad person

“ To be wicked and depraved, and to feel it, and to be wretched under it, is bad enough; but it is a great deal worse to have fallen into that depth of moral degradation, and to feel that really you don't care. ”

“ There were many other occasions on which my feelings were aroused to a high pitch, and I could not make up my mind as to whether people were bad or good, peaceful or mischief-making, and why they were so peculiarly cruel, lusting to work malevolence, and ashamed of being kind. ”

“ Here it may mean either that one who starts in a wicked course consorts with others "more wicked than himself," or that he himself grows in the bad and takes hold of the greater forms of evil—marries himself to the wicked one. ”

“ For itself—a phrase of qualification inserted to meed the captious remark, that there have been instances of bad men, under the reproach of conscience of the dread of consequences, expressing a regret that they had ever been well instructed, since this was an aggravation of their guilt, and perhaps had subserved their evil propensities with the more effectual means and ability. ”

“ If he is one of the embittered, he will probably so describe a possibly harmful, but not bad event, as to be able to complain of the wickedness of the world, which brought it about, that at one time such and such an evil happened to him. ”

“ I am not a bad sort of fellow at heart; and those who are worse than myself I hate with all the hatred of a good man, and show my dislike by raillery of every sort. You can imagine, can you not, that, by dint of relating stories in which, to please my auditors, I always make those who wantonly torment others receive the reward of their wickedness in the end, I get into the habit of feeling all the indignation and virtuous desire for vengeance I relate? ”

“ I fear I am a bad man. Could it be possible now, that there are thousands of persons in life who have committed great crimes in the face of society, who, nevertheless, are not responsible for half my guilt? ”

“ How degenerate in taste, how servile before dignities, rank, dress, pomp, and parade must a people have been that estimated the simple and plain as the bad (das Schlichte als das Schlechte) , the simple and plain man as the bad man! ”

“ And these wrong actions, in the avoidance of which duty consists, are usually such as produce, very immediately, some bad consequence in pain to others; while, in many prominent instances, the inclination, which prompts us to them, is itself an intrinsic evil, containing, as where the impulse is lust or cruelty, an anticipatory enjoyment of something evil or ugly. That right action does thus so frequently entail the suppression of some evil impulse, is necessary to explain the plausibility of the view that virtue consists in the control of passion by reason. ”

“ Therefore, to return to my original proposition, every bad man is ungrateful, because he has the seeds of every villainy in him; but he alone is rightly so called who is naturally inclined to this vice. ”

“ Bad men, with hardened effrontery, only laugh at their breaking down every barrier to modesty and virtue, and thus disrobing innocence, and rendering deformed that which ought to be the brightest feature of civilisation. ”

“ Restrain yourself, therefore, from all iniquity, and do that which is good." "What, sir," say I, "are the evil deeds from which we must restrain ourselves?" "Hear," says he: "from adultery and fornication, from unlawful revelling, from wicked luxury, from indulgence in many kinds of food and the extravagance of riches, and from boastfulness, and haughtiness, and insolence, and lies, and backbiting, and hypocrisy, from the remembrance of wrong, and from all slander. These are the deeds that are most wicked in the life of men. ”

“ He said to me, "Be simple and guileless, and you will be as the children who know not the wickedness that ruins the life of men. First, then, speak evil of no one, nor listen with pleasure to any one who speaks evil of another. ”

“ I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment’s notice. ”

“ Quite the reverse; the more I see of mankind, the more I 'm struck with the fact that the very wickedest and worst can't get rid of remorse! 'Tis something out of a man's nature entirely—something that dwells outside of him—sets him on to commit a crime; and then he begins to rayson and dispute with the temptation, just like one keepin' bad company, and listenin' to impure notions and evil suggestions day after day ”

“ The second class he names dry villains—men who are not only vicious but who (the steams from the polluted heart rising up and gathering round the head) have brought themselves and others to believe that vice is virtue. We mean these men when we say men of bad principles—guilt is out of the question. ”

“ Now, I believe—indeed, criminologists tell us—that an innocent child or a good man or woman will often feel a strange, involuntary dislike for an evil person, even when there is no proof of evil apparent. ”

“ for no one, as I may say, ever considers that which is declared to be the greatest penalty of evil-doing—namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men, and growing like them to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad. ”

“ How does it come about that you, who are bound to regard me as an innocent person, inasmuch as nature and circumstances have driven me to act as I did, could regard yourself as justified in revenging yourself on me. ”

“ In fact, in his own self-control under difficult or dangerous circumstances, lies his chief ascendancy over others who impulsively betray every emotion which animates them. Exhibitions of anger, fear, hatred, embarrassment, ardor or hilarity, are all bad form in public. ”

“ Are we responsible for what we cannot help? I could not condemn any one but myself. The existence of evil is true, but how horrible! And how it spoils our lives.”
“Spoils our lives,” he repeated. “You are quite right! Tell me, can a man or a woman love two people at once? Is it possible to love evil and good?” ”

“ Some, we confess, are so hardened, that they sin in the face of conscience, and over its neck; but for one bold, bad man, who treads on an awakened conscience in order to reach the gratification of his lust, there are ten cowards who drug the watcher into slumber, that they may sin in peace. ”

“ Such persons in the other life, when they come into the state of their interiors, and are heard to speak and seen to act, appear as if infatuated; for from their evil lusts they break out into all manner of abominations—into contempt of others, ridicule, blasphemy, hatred and revenge. They contrive plans of mischief, some of them with such cunning and malice, that it can scarcely be believed that anything of the kind could exist in any man. ”

“ "Misfortune is liable to make me a damn bad man," he said slowly. ”

“ Believe me, you attach too much consequence to hasty and half-comprehended expressions, uttered, as he avers, to appease the offended vanity of an angry and implacable—ay, and dangerous woman. There are few things a man will not say for such a purpose. He went too far in his anxiety to conciliate malice, and allay an evil temper. ”

“ Oh, if we could thus trace out the unreasonableness of vice, how often should we find that, when it has attained its object, it discovers it is not what it seemed! Why is there this cruel haste to corrupt innocence, to make, a victim of a young creature whom we ought to protect, one who is dragged by this first false step into a gulf of misery from which only death can release her? Brutality, vanity, folly, error, and nothing more. This pleasure itself is unnatural; it rests on popular opinion, and popular opinion at its worst, since it depends on scorn of self. ”

“ When it paints over, and apologizes for its pitiful criminalities; and endures its false weights, and its adulterated food; dares not to decide practically between good and evil, and can neither honor the one, nor smite the other, but sneers at the good, as if it were hidden evil, and consoles the evil with pious sympathy, and conserves it in the sugar of its leaden heart,—the end is come. ”

“ In my Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, I have endeavoured to expose a second great evil, namely, hypocrisy; the bane of all virtue, morality, and goodness; and to arm, as well as I can, the honest, undesigning, open-hearted man, who is generally the prey of this monster, against it. I believe a little reflection will convince us, that most mischiefs (especially those which fall on the worthiest part of mankind) owe their original to this detestable vice. ”

“ Have you--in all your life of idle, vicious, luxury--have you ever feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature? You know you have not. You have feared only the appearance of evil. To be as evil as you like so long as you can avoid the appearance of evil ”

“ This irrepressible delight and interest in the active life of the world, what could it be but the tendency to evil, most strongly developed? These heart-burnings whenever she witnessed men and women rejoicing in the exercise of their natural affections, what could that be but the proneness to evil in its grossest form? ”

“ There had been in his past, as in every man’s, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him; but the memory of these evil actions was far from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences. ”

“ I had to bear the sunken glare of his fierce crow-footed eyes if I wanted to know; and so I bore it, reflecting how much certain forms of evil are akin to madness, derived from intense egoism, inflamed by resistance, tearing the soul to pieces, and giving factitious vigour to the body. ”

“ You may perhaps imagine that to be compelled to speak to you at all is so abhorrent to me, that I shall use the fewest words I can, and use those words in their very fullest sense. You are the incarnation of misery and crime. As such you can perhaps understand how deeply I hate you. You are a villain; and so mean and despicable a villain, that even in the hour of your success you are a creature to be pitied; since from the very depth of your degradation you lack the power to know how much you are degraded! ”

“ Have you never observed a sort of people who, though they are themselves the abject slaves of every vice, show a kind of malicious indignation against the immoral conduct of others, and are the most severe to those whom they most resemble? ”

“ Their eyes are forever open to human misery. They walk amid desecrated affections, insulted virtue, and blasted hopes. They have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting business, and are moral pests. ”

“ He felt now the smarting anger, the outraged vanity of the wrong-doer who, having argued down his own conscience, and believing he has blinded others as himself, suddenly finds that himself and his motives are naked before the world. ”

“ Would it be well for us to pretend to be blameless? Who knows if these people do not see my faults better than I myself do, and if they are not the ones who truly love me? Often we call a thing evil-speaking, because it is not to our taste. ”

“ And yet to every bad there is a worse. ”

“ Every husband, every father, every brother, feared and loathed him as the incarnation of the Evil one—in their mean, narrow, tedious nauseating philosophy they held him as a perjured villain of the deepest dye, steeped in utterest infamy! ”

“ TO THE RAMBLER. SIR, No depravity of the mind has been more frequently or justly censured than ingratitude. There is indeed sufficient reason for looking on those that can return evil for good, and repay kindness and assistance with hatred or neglect, as corrupted beyond the common degrees of wickedness; nor will he, who has once been clearly detected in acts of injury to his benefactor, deserve to be numbered among social beings; he has endeavoured to destroy confidence, to intercept sympathy, and to turn every man's attention wholly on himself. ”

“ Their first and strongest impulse is to make the best of a bad situation—to put a better face on evil than it normally wears. ”

“ The strong inclination he has to do mischief. His very soul desires evil, desires that evil may be done and that he may have the pleasure, not only of seeing it, but of having a hand in it. The root of wickedness lies in the soul; the desire that men have to do evil, that is the lust which conceives and brings forth sin. 2. The strong aversion he has to do good: His neighbour, his friend, his nearest relation, finds no favour in his eyes, cannot gain from him the least kindness, though he be in the greatest need of it. ”

“ Passing from their public to their private characters we find them stained with every cruel and abominable vice, crime, and wickedness of which humanity at its very worst is capable; their lives are, as it were, the epitome of all the evil of the world ”

“ Good and bad men are each less so than they seem. ”

“ But he should have remained on the landing, and called to those below to bring lights, so as not to allow a chance of escape. Of course, he had no thought of evil.”
“And you connect that man with the evil?” ”