EVIL QUOTES
quotations about evil
There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR.
The Sirens of Titan
The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Plague
Evil is only imperfection, that which is not complete, which is becoming, but has not yet found its end.
ANNIE BESANT
The Immediate Future: Lectures Delivered in Queen's Hall
A great cause of evil in the world is that men seldom think themselves criminal if they offer the same injustice to others that has been successfully practiced on themselves.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.
SIGMUND FREUD
Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria
By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Williamson Durley, Oct. 3, 1845
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Prometheus Unbound
Between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never tried before.
MAE WEST
Klondike Annie
Evil is unspectacular and always human
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W.H. AUDEN
Herman Melville
We have been taught that there is a fixed, impermeable line between good and evil, with the comforting belief that We and our Kin are on the good side and They, Those Others are on the bad side. This good-bad, dark-light dichotomy creates concepts of the other, the enemy, and supports not only prejudicial thinking, the in-group sense of superiority over the out-group, but worse of all it encourages dehumanizing others, thinking of them as undeserving creatures who are less than human. It is not hardwired into us; it is learned from adults, from the media, from politicians, from slogans and propaganda all around us.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
"The Lucifer Effect: An Interview with Dr. Philip Zimbardo", Neuron Narrative, Oct. 20, 2008
There's evil in the world, all right. Being aware of it makes you a realist, not a paranoid.
DEAN KOONTZ
Your Heart Belongs to Me
The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.
MAX BORN
attributed, The New Intimacy
Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Fellowship of the Ring
Anyone who has killed love within himself is capable of doing evil.
GIACOMO BATTIATO
Entrusted
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure evil with evil.
SOPHOCLES
fragment, The Sons of Aleus
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
BLAISE PASCAL
attributed, The International Thesaurus of Quotations
People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.
DANIEL HANDLER (as Lemony Snicket)
The Grim Grotto
The whole gamut of good and evil is in every human being, certain notes, from stronger original quality or most frequent use, appearing to form the whole character; but they are only the tones most often heard. The whole scale is in every soul, and the notes most seldom heard will on rare occasions make themselves audible.
FANNY KEMBLE
Further Records, Feb. 12, 1875
If you have never done evil, you should not be frightened of devils knocking at your door.
CHINESE PROVERB