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evil quotes about good

English (25)

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“There is an old illusion—it is called good and evil.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.” George MacDonald, Lilith
“There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“For the function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil; whereas, inasmuch as all things morally wrong are evil, trickery prefers the evil to the good.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties
“Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation
“all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point.” Albert Camus, The Plague
“Evil is easy, and has infinite forms; good is almost unique.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.” Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
“The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye.” George MacDonald, Lilith
“Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world.” JAY-Z, Decoded
“Under the guidance of reason we should pursue the greater of two goods and the lesser of two evils.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were merely adapted to an end.” W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
“The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.” Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason
“Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil.” Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
“I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds.” L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
“Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
“I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“Through the gathering momentum of millions of acts of service and decency and kindness, I know we can overcome evil with greater good.” George W. Bush, State of the Union Address
“So little knows any, but God alone, to value right the good before him, but perverts best things to worst abuse, or to their meanest use.” John Milton, Paradise Lost
“Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“There never has been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of good and evil.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

Related topics

good darkness violence power cruelty sin man words strength soul religion illusion morality vice ignorance reason understanding nature virtue contradiction

Related authors

William Shakespeare (13)
Samuel Johnson (3)
Arthur Schopenhauer (3)
George MacDonald (2)
J. R. R. Tolkien (4)
Friedrich Nietzsche (3)
Blaise Pascal (3)
J. K. Rowling (3)
Henry David Thoreau (3)
Baruch Spinoza (3)
Mahatma Gandhi (2)
Albert Camus (2)
Marcus Aurelius (2)
C. S. Lewis (2)
John Steinbeck (2)
Terry Pratchett (2)
Aesop (2)
Arthur Conan Doyle (2)
John Milton (2)
Robert Louis Stevenson (2)

Related sources

Mere Christianity (2)
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2)
Ivanhoe (2)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (3)
The World as Will and Representation (3)
Ethics (3)
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (3)
Pensées (3)
Richard III (2)
The Merchant of Venice (2)
The Story of my Experiments with Truth (2)
The Plague (2)
Paradise Lost (2)
Meditations (2)
Walden (2)
East of Eden (2)
Lilith (2)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (2)
The Two Towers (2)
Aesop's Fables (2)

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Good quotes about evil