An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON EVIL
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797, British political writer, statesman)
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.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975, German-born American political philosopher)
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Aristotle (BC 384-322, Greek philosopher)
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. Auden (1907-1973, Anglo-American poet)
Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.
Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)
There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.
Saul Bellow (1915-, American novelist)
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.
Joseph Brodsky (1940-, Russian-born American poet, critic)
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.
Joseph Brodsky (1940-, Russian-born American poet, critic)
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867, French poet)
Nothing in the nature around us is evil.
John Berger (1926-, British actor, critic)
The devil's most devilish when respectable.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861, British poet)
By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797, British political writer, statesman)
The face of evil is always the face of total need.
William S. Burroughs (1914-1997, American writer)
The devil is the author of confusion.
Robert Burton (1576-1640, British clergyman, scholar)
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.
Eric Butterworth
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924, Polish-born British novelist)
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
George Carlin (1937-, American stage and television comedian)
All evil is like a nightmare; the instant you stir under it, the evil is gone.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
The devil has his elect.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.
Maria Weston Chapman
Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936, British author)
Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.
E. M. Cioran (1911-1995, Rumanian-born French philosopher)
To do no evil is good, to intend none better.
Claudius (10 BC-AD 54, Roman emperor)
All evils are equal when they are extreme.
Pierre Corneille (1606-1684, French dramatist)
Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.
William Cowper (1731-1800, British poet)
The pious pretence that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947, British occultist)
I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.
Madame Marie Curie (1867-1934, Polish-born French physicist)
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882, British naturalist)
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
John Donne (1572-1632, British metaphysical poet)
Evil be to him who evil thinks.
Edward II
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
George Eliot (1819-1880, British novelist)
One soweth and another reapeth is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.
George Eliot (1819-1880, British novelist)
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.
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965, American-born British poet, critic)
The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
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.
Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466-1536, Dutch humanist)
Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983, American inventor, designer, poet, philosopher)
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.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948, Indian political, spiritual leader)
I know nothing more mocking than a devil that despairs.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other ones invariably slink in after it.
Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658, Spanish philosopher, writer)
If the devil could be persuaded to write a bible, he would title it, "You Only Live Once."
Sidney J. Harris (1917-, American journalist)
The devil will let a preacher prepare a sermon if it will keep him from preparing himself.
Vance Havner
There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.
Benjamin Haydon (1786-1846, British artist)
Some people show evil as a great racehorse shows breeding. They have the dignity of a hard chancre.
Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961, American writer)
Why should the devil have all the good tunes?
Rowland Hill
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
But evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart!
Thomas Hood (1799-1845, British poet and humorist)
Remember only the good; the bad will never forget you.
Doug Horton
There is no bad in good.
Doug Horton
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
To rid ourselves of our shadows -- who we are -- we must step into either total light or total darkness. Goodness and evil.
Jeremy P. Johnson
The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
They that know no evil will suspect none.
Ben Jonson (1573-1637, British dramatist, poet)
Sure the world is full of trouble, but as long as we have people undoing trouble we have a pretty good world.
Helen Keller (1880-1968, American blind/deaf author, lecturer, amorist)
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
The arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
Our evil actions do not attract as much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
Quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examining it is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
Quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examining it is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
There are both heroes of evil and heroes of good.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
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.
Isidore Ducasse, Comte De Lautreamont (1846-1870, French author, poet)
This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930, British author)
When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.
Max Lerner (1902-1992, American author, columnist)
The devil helps his servants for a season; but when they get into a pinch; he leaves them in the lurch.
Sir Roger L'Estrange
Satan is neither omnipotent nor free to do everything he pleases. Prince of the world he may be, but the Prince of Peace has come and dealt him a death blow.
Harold Lindsell
The devil is God's ape!
Martin Luther (1483-1546, German leader of the protestant reformation)
If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.
Joseph De Maistre (1753-1821, French diplomat, philosopher)
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.
Joseph De Maistre (1753-1821, French diplomat, philosopher)
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.
Tony Martin
Evil is something you recognize immediately when you see it: it works through charm.
Brian Masters
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.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British novelist, playwright)
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.
Patrick McGoohan
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.
John Milton (1608-1674, British poet)
Nothing baffles the schemes of evil people so much as the calm composure of great souls.
Gabriel Riqueti Mirabeau (1749-1791, French revolutionary politician, orator)
Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662, French scientist, religious philosopher)
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662, French scientist, religious philosopher)
Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.
Phaedrus (c.1-?, Macedonian inventor and writer)
There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.
Plato (BC 427?-347?, Greek philosopher)
Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744, British poet, critic, translator)
Of two evils, it is always best to vote for the least hypocritical.
American Proverb (Sayings of American origin)
You are permitted in time of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.
Bulgarian Proverb
The devil places a pillow for a drunken man to fall upon.
Canadian Proverb
Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.
Ethiopian Proverb (Sayings of Ethiopian origin)
Even the best tree sometimes has bad fruit.
Hungarian Proverb (Sayings of Hungarian origin)
Speak of the Devil and he appears.
Italian Proverb (Sayings of Italian origin)
The devil's boots don't creak.
Scottish Proverb (Sayings of Scottish origin)
Wickedness is its own punishment.
Francis Quarles (1592-1644, British poet)
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.
Kathleen Raine
All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonwealth, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618, British courtier, navigator, writer)
Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.
Anne Rice (1941-, American author, "Interview with the Vampire")
At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919, American President (26th))
Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778, Swiss political philosopher, educationist, essayist)
Evil spelled backward is live.
Author Unknown
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.
Marquis De Sade (1740-1814, French author)
Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946, Anglo-American essayist, aphorist)
Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965, German born medical missionary, theologian, musician, and philosopher)
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.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca (BC 3-65 AD, Roman philosopher, dramatist, statesman)
The devil can site scripture for his own purpose! An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor) Source: Merchant of Venice
The devil has the power to assume a pleasing shape.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)
There's small choice in rotten apples.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616, British poet, playwright, actor)
I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
Socrates (BC 469-399, Greek philosopher of Athens)
There is only one good -- knowledge; and only one evil -- ignorance.
Socrates (BC 469-399, Greek philosopher of Athens)
Of two evils, choose neither.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892, British Baptist preacher)
Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
For the just man falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble to ruin.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
No evil shall happen to the just.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
Overcome evil with good.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
Whoever rewards evil for good, evil will not depart from their house.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
The devil doesn't know how to sing, only how to howl.
Francis Thompson (1859-1907, British poet)
The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still.
A. W. Tozer (1897-1963, American preacher)
May avarice lose his purse and benevolence find it.
Author Unknown
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)
Those that are evil have not only the good against them, but also the bad.
Author Unknown
Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it.
Alan Valentine
Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.
Virgil (c. 70 - 19 BC, Roman poet)
You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)
Satan always finds some mischief for idle hands to do.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748, British hymn-writer)
What is worse than evil? The inability to bear it.
C. J. Weber
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.
Simone Weil (1910-1943, French philosopher, mystic)
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
Mae West (1892-1980, American actress)
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797, British feminist writer)
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