Ethics

"Ut acerbum est, pro benefactis quom mali messem metas!"

"The human race is not divided into the kingdom of Ormuzd and the kingdom of Ahriman [the good spirit and the evil spirit in the Zoroastrian religion]. In each man are these two kingdoms of light and darkness."

"We must now take precautions to prevent you from being embarrassed by something in which the ignorant majority is at fault for lack of proper consideration, and so from supposing with them, that man has not been created truly good simply because he is able to do evil. ... If you reconsider this matter carefully and force your mind to apply a more acute understanding to it, it will be revealed to you that man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior: it is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honor of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived."

"Human nature is evil; its goodness derives from conscious activity."

"There is Good and there is Evil and Evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon, I shall not compromise in this."

"Let us never forget the Christian maxim "that we should not do evil that good may come of it.""

"Good and bad. She had encountered a lot of believers in good and bad while she did this work. They had always been too rigid to negotiate with."

"Man is an enigma whose knot has not ceased to occupy observers. The contradictions that he contains astonish reason and impose silence on it. So what is this inconceivable being who carries within him powers that clash and who is obliged to hate himself in order to esteem himself?"

"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."

"If children will read comics [...] isn't it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read? [...] The wish to be super strong is a healthy wish, a vital compelling, power-producing desire. The more the Superman-Wonder Woman picture stories build this innner compulsion by stimulating the child's natural longing to battle and overcome obstacles, particularly evil ones, the better chance your child has for self-advancement in the world. Certainly there can be no argument about the advisability of strengthening the fundamental human desire, too often buried beneath stultifying divertisments and disguises, to see good overcome evil."

"The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded."

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil."

"It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference."

"[T]here's good and bad in all of us. We have to face them both, and sometimes we have to make a decision between each. It's nothing we can avoid. It's nothing we can rant against. Each individual has to make his own decision on it."

"It must be that evil communications corrupt good dispositions."

"'Indian inclusiveness operates at a level deeper than the polarities of good and evil. It has never shown comparable insistence on the need for a choice between opposites of right and wrong, as did the Zoroastrians, the Jews, the Christians.' .... 'In Indian ethics, good and evil are always relative, and a precise definition of intrinsically good or bad deeds is avoided.'"

"In the beginning evil and good were created, and to man was given the command to rule and subdue the evil, and to foster and cause the good to prevail. That is the final reason of human experience, and man becomes a god when he has won the victory."

"Being against evil doesn't make you good."

"And out of good still to find means of evil."

"Only by contact with evil could I have learned to feel by contrast the beauty of truth and love and goodness."

"Evil beginning houres may end in good."

"Non è male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene."

"At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask! What shall I give you?” And Solomon said: “You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?” The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing."

"I think the old, sound, and honest maxim that "you shall not do evil that good may come," is applicable in law as well as in morals."

"I do not believe in evil absolute. I have recounted that philosophy in specific in the Annals, and it affects my every observation throughout my tenure as Annalist. I believe in our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact, by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another."

"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks."

"I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace."

"To cease from evil, to do good, and to purify the mind yourself, this is the teaching of all the Buddhas."

"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."

"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

"Do good to others, that will protect you against evil."

"Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph."

"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant and then it tries to silence good."

"Good can imagine Evil, but Evil cannot imagine Good."

"Evil communications corrupt good manners."

"Good deeds remain good, no matter whether we know how the world was made or not. Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness. The question for anyone to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay, the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral completeness is, in the true sense, a human being."

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

"It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them. In this beneficent work, sections and races should be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in the divine oracle which declares that "a little child shall lead them," for our own little children will soon control the destinies of the Republic."

"Tel est le privilége du génie : il aperçoit, il saisit des rapports, là où des yeux vulgaires lie voient que des faits isolés."

"Let us award a just, a brilliant homage to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious privilege of arranging a thousand isolated facts, of making seductive theories spring from them; but let us not forget to state, that the scythe of the reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of uniting them into sheaves!"

"Your privilege, insofar as it divides you from others, is in your way, unless you resolve how to use it for others, as well as for yourself."

"Privilege has always been a dulling factor in one’s comprehension of human difference."

"Men differ in … social status. … Simple observation shows that in every such situation he who is more favored feels the never ceasing need to look upon his position as in some way “legitimate,” upon his advantage as “deserved,” and the other’s disadvantage as being brought about by the latter’s “fault.” That the purely accidental causes of the difference may be ever so obvious makes no difference."

"Every highly privileged group develops the myth of its natural, especially its blood, superiority. Under conditions of stable distribution of power and, consequently, of status order, that myth is accepted by the negatively privileged strata. Such a situation exists as long as the masses continue in that natural state of theirs in which thought about the order of domination remains but little developed, which means, as long as no urgent needs render the state of affairs “problematical.” But in times in which the class situation has become unambiguously and openly visible to everyone as the factor determining every man’s individual fate, that very myth of the highly privileged about everyone having deserved his particular lot has often become one of the most passionately hated objects of attack."

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ouselves we feel that no one else has the right to blame us."

"I have seen enough to know that blame does not come in neatly packaged parcels."

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches."

"When bad fortune occurs, the unresourceful, unimaginative man looks about him to attach the blame to someone else."

"Now there's no point in placing the blame And you should know I'd suffer the same"

"If we find fault with others We ourselves are also in the wrong. When other people are in the wrong, we should ignore it, For it is wrong for us to find fault. By getting rid of the habit of fault-finding We cut off a source of defilement."