Vices

"Yes, evil thrives on secrecy."

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."

"Evil is relative, Annalist. You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger."

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

"“There is evil! It's actual, like cement."

"All evil in the world is the result of an imbalance between the people who benefit from shenanigans and the people who get screwed by shenanigans."

"It’s no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing."

"Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots."

"Where two evils present, a wise administration, if there be room for an option, will choose the least."

"It’s a little hard for me to know that I am “disordered” or again to quote Ratzinger, “that i am guilty of a moral evil” simply by fulfilling my sexual destiny as I see it. It’s…it’s hard for me to be told, to be told that I’m evil, because I think of myself as someone who is filled with love, whose only purpose in life was to achieve love, and who feels love for so much of nature and the world and for everything else and who like anybody decent and with education realizes that in order, to achieve and receive love, it’s a struggle."

"There is not an evil which fails to bring benefit to some one."

"I must say that anyone who moved through those years [World War II] without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey must have been blind or wrong in the head."

"“Evil” is first and foremost a religious notion. It means whatever a religion dislikes."

"When the Prophet saw injustice, either on the part of men or on the part of Providence, he did not inquire closely into its causes, nor bend the knee to necessity, and judge the evil-doers leniently; nor again did he give himself up to despair, or doubt the strength of Righteousness, or the possibility of its victory. He simply complained, pouring out his soul in words of fire; then went his way again, fighting for his ideal, and full of hope that in time—perhaps even "at the end of time"—Righteousness would be lord over all the earth."

"There surely is an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of Evil, in human nature, [that] one can."

"Every man knows there are evils in this world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as what these evils are. But to most men one in particular stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this stands out with such startling vividness that they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them as the natural consequence of their own particular evil-in-chief."

"It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final."

"The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it."

"George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as "evil." Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the "lesser evil." This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, "lesser evil" is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism — the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it — is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than "cowboy" language."

"It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak."

"Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person."

"At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols."

"Cease to do evil. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow."

"When we think of evil, we think of something violent or demonic, something filled with hatred and wretchedly hungry to devour the good. But what if evil eats a salad at lunch and is polite, speaking rationally with nice table manners?"

"Evil works best, not as a growling beast crouching in the darkness, but in a rational, scientific voice. It is the way it's always worked, the way it worked years ago, the way it works now."

"Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen."

"Our ideas on Evil. Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good is it an independent cause in nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering and death, and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote for every poison and her laws a reward for every suffering. The butterfly devoured by a bird becomes that bird, and the little bird killed by an animal goes into a higher form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal fitness of things, and hence cannot be called Evil in Nature. The real evil proceeds from human intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning man who dissociates himself from Nature. Humanity then alone is the true source of evil. Evil is the exaggeration of good, the progeny of human selfishness and greediness. Think profoundly and you will find that save death—which is no evil but a necessary law, and accidents which will always find their reward in a future life—the origin of every evil whether small or great is in human action, in man whose intelligence makes him the one free agent in Nature. It is not nature that creates diseases, but man... the chief cause of nearly two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power... is religion under whatever form and in whatever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches."

"Fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil."

"Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them."

"There was an evil in Pandora's box Beyond all other ones, yet it came forth In guise so lovely, that men crowded round And sought it as the dearest of all treasure."

"He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done."

"It is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that lies in others."

"Evil has nothing in common with life; it cannot create, since its power is purely negative. Evil is the schism of being; it is not true."

"He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was that evil? And ants? They killed. No, the jungle wasn't evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares.It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away. His killing that day would not have been evil if the dead soldiers hadn't been loved by mothers, sisters, friends, wives. Mellas understood that in destroying the fabric that linked those people, he had participated in evil, but this evil had hurt him as well. He also understood that his participation in evil, was a result of being human. Being human was the best he could do. Without man there would be no evil. But there was also no good, nothing moral built over the world of fact. Humans were responsible for it all. He laughed at the cosmic joke, but he felt heartsick."

"The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face."

"EVIL. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake."

"The whole Christian system, like every other similar system, goes to pieces upon the problem of evil. Its most adept theologians, attempting to reconcile the Heavenly Father of their theory with the dreadful agonies of man in His world, can only retreat behind Chrysostom's despairing maxim that "a comprehended God is no God.""

"He that has light within his own cleer brest May sit i'th center, and enjoy bright day, But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the mid-day Sun; Himself is his own dungeon."

"Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today. Evil unchecked grows, Evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them."

"Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein."

"Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand on le fait par conscience."

"Of two evils I have chosen the least."

"I spent, I probably spent my whole life to understand what evil was, and more importantly, what can be done about it. It is strange pursuit in some ways for an academic, because academics talk about academic things. One thing you can say about evil is that whatever it is, it is not bloody well academic. It is not an intellectual issue, it is an existential issue. And, it is not an theoretical issue, it is an issue that deals with absolute nature of reality. And I guess sometimes I think that people would go in academia to shield themselves from having to ask questions about absolute nature of reality."

"We are fascinated by evil. We watch dramatic representations of serial killers, psychopaths, and the kings of organized crime, gang members, rapists, contract killers, and spies. We voluntarily frighten and disgust ourselves with thrillers and horror films—and it is more than prurient curiosity."

"It will not be in accordance with your vain desires nor the vain desires of the People of the Book. Whoever does evil, will be requited for it and will not find for himself besides God a guardian nor a savior."

"And I do not acquit myself. Indeed, the soul is a persistent enjoiner of evil, except those upon which my Lord has mercy. Indeed, my Lord is Forgiving and Merciful.""

"The long run evil in the extreme will be the End of those who do evil; for that they rejected the Signs of God, and held them up to ridicule."

"And whatever (evil) misfortune befalls you, it is on account of what your hands have wrought and He pardons much. And you cannot escape in the earth, and besides God you have no protector nor helper."

"Is then he who has a clear argument from his Lord similar to him to whom his evil conduct is made fair-seeming; and they follow their low desires."

"Responding to evil A superior being does not render evil for evil, this is the maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct. (...) A noble soul will ever exercise compassion even towards those who enjoy injuring others."