83 quotes about Evil



The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Arendt, Hannah quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Aristotle quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Auden, W. H. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Baudelaire, Charles quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bellow, Saul quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Berger, John quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Overcome evil with good. [St. Paul]]
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bible quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

No evil shall happen to the just.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bible quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Whoever rewards evil for good, evil will not depart from their house.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bible quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Those that are evil have not only the good against them, but also the bad.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bischer quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even -- if you will -- eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Brodsky, Joseph quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Buddha quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Burke, Edmund quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The face of evil is always the face of total need.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Burroughs, William S. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Butler, Samuel quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil, and evil spirits, devils and devil possession, are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself-a force that works against man or, against God, if you will.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Butterworth, Eric quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.-
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Carlin, George quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

All evil is like a nightmare; the instant you stir under it, the evil is gone.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Carlyle, Thomas quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Chapman, Maria Weston quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Cioran, E. M. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

To do no evil is good, to intend none better.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Claudius quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Conrad, Joseph quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

All evils are equal when they are extreme.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Corneille, Pierre quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The pious pretence that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Crowley, Aleister quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I am one of those who think like Nobel, than humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Curie, Madame Marie quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Darwin, Charles quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Donne, John quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil be to him who evil thinks.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Edward II quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Eliot, George quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

One soweth and another reapeth is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Eliot, George quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Eliot, T. S. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Erasmus, Desiderius quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Must I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gandhi, Mahatma quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other ones invariably slink in after it.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gracian, Baltasar quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Haydon, Benjamin quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Some people show evil as a great racehorse shows breeding. They have the dignity of a hard chancre.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hemingway, Ernest quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hoffer, Eric quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

But evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart!
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hood, Thomas quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | James, William quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

They that know no evil will suspect none.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Jonson, Ben quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | King Jr. Martin Luther quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | La Rochefoucauld, Francois De quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | La Rochefoucauld, Francois De quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It is a power stronger than will. Could a stone escape from the laws of gravity? Impossible. Impossible, for evil to form an alliance with good.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lautreamont, Isidore Ducasse, Comte De quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lawrence, D. H. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lerner, Max quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Maistre, Joseph De quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Maistre, Joseph De quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

My mother's obsession with the good scissors always scared me a bit. It implied that somewhere in the house there lurked: the evil scissors.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Martin, Tony quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is something you recognize immediately you see it: it works through charm.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Masters, Brian quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Maugham, W. Somerset quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

But what is the greatest evil? If you are going to epitomize evil, what is it? Is it the bomb? The greatest evil that one has to fight constantly, every minute of the day until one dies, is the worse part of oneself.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mcgoohan, Patrick quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Milton, John quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Nothing baffles the schemes of evil people so much as the calm composure of great souls.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mirabeau, Gabriel Riqueti quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Pascal, Blaise quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Pascal, Blaise quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Phaedrus quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Plato quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

By bravely enduring it, an evil which cannot be avoided is overcome
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Proverb quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The love of evil is the root of all money.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Proverb, American quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Of two evils, it is always best to vote for the least hypocritical.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Proverb, American quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Proverb, Ethiopian quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Wickedness is its own punishment.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Quarles, Francis quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Raine, Kathleen quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Raleigh, Sir Walter quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Rice, Anne quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Rousseau, Jean Jacques quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is a moral entity and not a created one, an eternal and not a perishable entity: it existed before the world; it constituted the monstrous, the execrable being who was also to fashion such a hideous world. It will hence exist after the creatures which people this world.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Sade, Marquis De quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy. Even in those cases which put us out of wits, it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss that troubles us.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Seneca quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There's small choice in rotten apples.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Shakespeare, William quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Shaw, George Bernard quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Smith, Logan Pearsall quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is only one good -- knowledge; and only one evil -- ignorance.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Socrates quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Of two evils, choose neither.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Spurgeon, Charles Haddon quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Truly has it been said; that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Unknown, Source quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil spelled backward is live.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Unknown, Source quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Virgil quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Voltaire quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

What is worse than evil? The inability to bear it.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Weber, C. J. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Weil, Simone quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | West, Mae quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | West, Mae quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Wollstonecraft, Mary quotes
      Related items on Amazon