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good quotes about evil

English (25)

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“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 an old illusion—it is called good and evil.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“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
“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
“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
“He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were merely adapted to an end.” W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“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
“There never has been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of good and evil.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Evil is easy, and has infinite forms; good is almost unique.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“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
“There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“Under the guidance of reason we should pursue the greater of two goods and the lesser of two evils.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world.” JAY-Z, Decoded
“If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation
“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
“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

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evil bad praise day understanding right power love life belief men happiness reason death morality contradiction action man ignorance words

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William Shakespeare (7)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (3)
John Steinbeck (3)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (3)
Henry David Thoreau (3)
Marcus Aurelius (3)
Confucius (3)
Aristotle (3)
Friedrich Nietzsche (2)
Jane Austen (2)
Ayn Rand (2)
J. K. Rowling (2)
J. R. R. Tolkien (2)
Muhammad Ali (2)
George MacDonald (2)
L. Frank Baum (2)
Baruch Spinoza (2)
W. Somerset Maugham (2)
George Bernard Shaw (1)
Charles Darwin (1)

Related sources

Meditations (3)
Analects (3)
Civil Disobedience (3)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (2)
Lilith (2)
Atlas Shrugged (2)
The Soul of a Butterfly (2)
Of Human Bondage (2)
East of Eden (2)
Emma (2)
The Merchant of Venice (2)
Politics (2)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2)
Ethics (2)
Demons (2)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2)
Tao Te Ching (1)
On The Origin of Species (1)
Hamlet (1)
The Story of my Experiments with Truth (1)

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