quotations about evil
I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.
MARQUIS DE SADE
Justine or The Misfortunes of Virtue
Evil does not approach us as pride any more, but on the contrary as slumber, lassitude, concealment of the "I," and distortion of the beyond. It approaches us in far more dreadful fashion.... It may make us so quickly contented, that any definitive fire will die down. The venomous, breathtaking frigid mist seems able ... to harden hearts and fill them with envy, obduracy and resentment, with bloody scorn for the divine image and light, with all the causes of the only true original sin, which is not wanting to be like God.
ERNST BLOCH
Man on His Own
Evil seeks out evil.
ROY THOMAS & CLARA NOTO
Red Sonja
Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
ANNE RICE
Interview with the Vampire
Do not be dismayed to learn there is a bit of the devil in you. There is a bit of the devil in us all.
ARTHUR BYRON COVER
Night of the Living Rerun
Because I'm evil, my middle name is misery.
ELVIS PRESLEY
"T-R-O-U-B-L-E", Today
There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory.
SERGEI LUKYANENKO
Last Watch
All things truly wicked start from an innocence.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A Moveable Feast
We try to bring up our children so that they are protected from the world's evils, only to find we've raised a pack of innocents who seem to be about to stumble into them at every turn just from sheer stupidity!
SAMUEL R. DELANY
Neverÿon
As the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare;
so are the sons of men snared in evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.
DORIS LESSING
Ecclesiastes or, The Preacher
So much good, so much evil. Just add water.
MARKUS ZUSAK
The Book Thief
More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.
GLEN COOK
Dreams of Steel
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
W. H. AUDEN
"September 1, 1939"
We all have dark desires, yearnings for vengeance; and you must remember how those feelings stirred your blood... because what marks the line between good and evil is the choice not to act on them.
ZEDDICUS ZUL ZORANDER
"Bloodline", Legend of the Seeker
A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.
THOMAS HARDY
Far from the Madding Crowd
Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Illustrated London News, Oct. 23, 1909
Evil comes up softly like a flower.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Epilogue"
I desire to go through life knowing as little of evil in it as possible. To this end, I sometimes avoid looking too closely into the nature of things, studying them only so far as they seem to be good, and abandoning interest in them as soon as their darker feature begin to appear. The good only deserves a hearty interest.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . 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. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars. Evil does not relent; it must be defeated. And even when defeated, uprooted, and purified by fire, evil leaves behind a seed that will one day germinate and, in blooming, again be misunderstood.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Apocalypse