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.
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.
There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.
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.
Overcome evil with good. [St. Paul]]
— Bible
No evil shall happen to the just.
— Bible
Whoever rewards evil for good, evil will not depart from their house.
— Bible
Those that are evil have not only the good against them, but also the bad.
— Bischer
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.
There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.
— Buddha
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
The face of evil is always the face of total need.
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
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.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.-
All evil is like a nightmare; the instant you stir under it, the evil is gone.
We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.
Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.
To do no evil is good, to intend none better.
— Claudius
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
All evils are equal when they are extreme.
The pious pretence that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.
I am one of those who think like Nobel, than humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.
It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
Evil be to him who evil thinks.
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
One soweth and another reapeth is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.
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.
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.
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.
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other ones invariably slink in after it.
There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.
Some people show evil as a great racehorse shows breeding. They have the dignity of a hard chancre.
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
But evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart!
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
They that know no evil will suspect none.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.
There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.
We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity.
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.
This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.
When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.
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.
If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.
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.
Evil is something you recognize immediately you see it: it works through charm.
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.
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.
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.
Nothing baffles the schemes of evil people so much as the calm composure of great souls.
Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.
Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.
— Phaedrus
There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.
— Plato
By bravely enduring it, an evil which cannot be avoided is overcome
— Proverb
The love of evil is the root of all money.
Of two evils, it is always best to vote for the least hypocritical.
Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.
Wickedness is its own punishment.
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.
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.
Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.
Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
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.
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.
— Seneca
There's small choice in rotten apples.
I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish.
There is only one good -- knowledge; and only one evil -- ignorance.
— Socrates
Of two evils, choose neither.
Truly has it been said; that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Evil spelled backward is live.
Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.
— Virgil
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
— Voltaire
What is worse than evil? The inability to bear it.
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.
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness.