evil

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? thenmay yealso dogood, that areaccustomedto do evil.

—Bible (Old Testament)

The genius of American culture and its integrity comes from fidelity to the light. Plain as day, we say. Happy as the day is long. Early to bed, early to rise. American virtues are daylight virtues: honesty, integrity, plain speech.We say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no, and all else comes from the evil one. America presumes innocence and even the right to happiness.

—Rodriguez, Richard

C'est de la'   que vient tout le mal: Dieu est un homme. All evil comes from this fact: God is a man.

—Giraudoux, (Hippolyte) Jean

Race prejudice isnot onlya shadowover the coloredöit is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

—Buck, Pearl ne¤  e Sydenstricker

All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony, not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, One truth is clear,'Whatever Is, is.'

—Pope, Alexander

‚En tantas de la muerte librer|¤as, los cuerpos de esos huesos, mal seguro, estudia, Julio; y en su letra advierte, que son abecedarios de la muerte! Julio, in those libraries of death study the bodies of those bonesöan assured evil; and learn from those characters that they form the abecedary of death!

—Dom|¤  nguez Camargo, Hernando

Morality which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil.

—Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

—Bible (NewTestament)

The devil Bush and his treacherous gang, with criminal Zionism, havebegunthegreat showdown, themotherof all battles between good and evil.

—Hussein, Saddam

La volupte¤   unique et supre"  me de l'amour g|"t dans la certitude de faire le mal. The unique, supreme pleasure of love consists in the certainty of doing evil.

—Baudelaire, Charles

Surely, it is in youth man is most thoroughly depraved. Hell lies about us in our infancy. The youthful innocency sung by aged poets (who forget their first childhood) is nothing but ignorance of evil. As the child comes to know evil, he loves it.

—Mishima,Yukio pseudonym of  Hiraoka Kimitake

Les enfants sont hautains, de¤  daigneux, cole'  res, envieux, curieux, inte¤  resse¤  s, paresseux, volages, timides, intempe¤  rants, menteurs, dissimule¤  s†ils ne veulent point souffrir de mal, et aiment a'   en faire: ils sont de¤ j a'   des hommes. Children are haughty, disdainful, angry, envious, curious, interested, lazy, fickle, shy, self-indulgent, liars, deceivers†they do not wish to suffer evil, but like to do evil: theyare already adults.

—La Bruye'  re,Jean de

Keep ye the lawöbe swift in all obedienceö Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. Make ye sure to each his own That he reap where he hath sown; By thepeaceamongourpeopleslet men know weserve the Lord!

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

The only real thing they accomplish that I can see is to make men feel a little more secure in their consciences about doing evil.

—More, SirThomas

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming tothreaten the peace of the world.By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.

—Bush, GeorgeW(alker)

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

—Bible (NewTestament)

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.Thy will be doneinearth, as it isinheaven.Giveus this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive ourdebtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

—Bible (NewTestament)

   Non enim facile de his, quos plurimum diligimus, turpitudinem suspicamur. We donoteasilysuspectevil ofthosewhomwelovemost.

—Abelard, Peter

Drawing is onlya necessary evil, proportions are easily determined: colour isthe goal, the beginning and end of art.

—Heinse,Wilhelm

Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

—Bentham,Jeremy

Honi soit qui mal y pense. Evil be to him that evil thinks.

—Edward III

The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need.

—Burroughs,William S(eward)

   The evil inthisworld iscommitted by thespiritual fatcats who think that they are without sin because theyare unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self- examination.

—Peck, M(organ) Scott

If I be evil intreated, or sent away with a flea in mine ear, let him look that Iwill rail onhimsoundly; nor foranhour or a day, whiles the injury is fresh in my memory; but in some elaborate polished poem, which I will leave to the world when I am dead, to be a living image to all ages of his beggarly parsimony and ignoble illiberality.

—Nashe,Thomas

Le mal se fait sans effort, naturellement, par fatalite¤  ; le bien est toujours le produit d'un art. Evil is done without effort, naturally, it's destiny; good is always a product of art.

—Baudelaire, Charles

But evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart!

—Honorius of Autun

Evil news rides post, while good news baits.

—Milton,John

The evil of it is, that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushingofthelarger worlds, and cannot seethemasthey circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Seldom can the unhappy be persuaded that the evil of the day is sufficient for it; and the ambitious will not be content with the present splendour, but paints yet more glorious triumphs, on the cloud curtain of the future.

—Carlyle,Thomas

  That space the Evil One abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remained Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed, Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge.

—Milton,John

Evil people†you never forget them. And that's the aim of any actressönever to be forgotten.

—Davis, Bette originally Ruth Elizabeth Davis

Avirtuous man can almost cease to believe in Hell, but he carried Hell about with him. Sometimes at night he dreamed of it† Evil ran like malaria in his veins.

—Greene, (Henry) Graham

   If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil.

—Milton,John

It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph.

—Burke, Edmund

Evil, what is evil? There is only one evil, to deny life.

—Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)

To will is present with me; but how to perform that which isgood I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

—Bible (NewTestament)

We have seen Good men made evil wrangling with the evil, Straight mindsgrown crooked fighting crooked minds. Our peace betrayed us; we betrayed our peace. Look at it well.This was the good town once.

—Muir, Edwin

He delights to expose the raw nerves of evil, showing it as a force in the world, a skeletonlike figure working visible mischief in the ordinary everydayaffairs of men and women and children.

—Church, Richard

Family!† the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.

—Strindberg, August

They fulfil their vows, and fear a day whose evil is upon the wing; they give food, for the love of Him, to the needy, the orphan, the captive: 'We feed you only for the Face of God; we desire no recompense from you, no thankfulness.'

—The Koran

Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn! What dangers thou canst make us scorn! Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil; Wi'usquabae, we'll face the devil!

—Burns, Robert

   The L ismy shepherd; Ishall not want.He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valleyof theshadow of death,I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the L for ever.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Often, the fear of one evil leadsus into inflicting onethat is worse.

—Boileau (Despre¤  aux), Nicolas

   And Jacobsaid unto Pharaoh,The days oftheyears of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: fewand evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world's anguish is caused by people between twentyand forty.

—Faulkner,William Harrison

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

—Lowell,James Russell

Teach us delight in simple things And mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And love to all men 'neath the sun!

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

O goodness infinite, goodness immense! That all this good of evil shall produce, And evil turn to good; more wonderful Than that which by creation first brought forth Light out of darkness!

—Milton,John

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the bowers of paradise.

—Paine,Thomas

The longest day must have its close,öthe gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to aneternal night, andthenightofthejusttoaneternalday.

—Stowe, Harriet (Elizabeth) ne¤  e Beecher

For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By his permissive will, through heav'n and earth.

—Milton,John

If evil does not exist, what isgoing to happen to literature?

—Pritchett, Sir V(ictor) S(awdon)

If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.

—Bush, GeorgeW(alker)

Iwill not againcursetheground anymore for man'ssake; for the imagination of man is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

—Bible (Old Testament)

We don't want apartheid liberalized.We want it dismantled.You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil.

—Tutu, Desmond Mpilo

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

—Bible (NewTestament)

And the serpent said unto the woman,Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

—Bible (Old Testament)

   Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evilönot the strength to choose between the two.

—Cheever,JohnWilliam

It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world.

—Milton,John

As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of good and evil?

—Milton,John

L'homme n'est ni bon ni me¤  chant, il na|"t avec des instincts et des aptitudes. Manisneithergoodnorevil; heisbornwith instinctsand abilities.

—Balzac, Honore¤   de

There is a mixture of evil in everything we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach, while we Crabbe exercise the rights of children, we become childish.

—Cowper,William

Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or to make the deserts bloom. There isno evil in the atomöonly in men's souls.

—Stevenson, Adlai E(wing)

Ist es an und fu«  r sich absurd, das Nichtsein fu«  r einUbel zu « halten; da jedes Ubel wie jedes Gut das Dasein zur Voraussetzung hat, ja sogar das Bewusstsein. It is in and by itself absurd to regard non-existence as an evil; for every evil, like every good, presupposes existence, indeed even consciousness.

—Schopenhauer, Arthur

There is only one good, knowledge, and only one evil, ignorance.

—Socrates

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Faction is to party what the superlative is to the positive. Party is a political evil, and faction is the worst of all parties.

—Bolingbroke, Henry StJohn, 1st Viscount

He who passivelyaccepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.

—King, Martin LutherJr

For myself I am fairly certain that no wise man believes anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any evil or base act.

—Plato

   Prisons, cachots, lieux be¤  nis o  u' le mal est impossible, puisqu'ils sont le carrefour de toute la male¤  diction du monde. On ne peut pas commettre le mal dans le mal. Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible becausetheyarethe crossroads of all the evil in the world.One cannot commit evil in hell.

—Genet,Jean

Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

—Haile Selassie originally Prince RasTafari Makonnen

   L'artiste n'a pasöou le poe'  teöpour fonction de trouver la solution pratique des proble'  mes du mal. It is not up to the artist or to the poet to find practical solutions to the problems of evil.

—Genet,Jean

MrTurnball had predicted evil consequences†and was now doing the best in his power to bring about the verification of his own prophecies.

—Trollope, Anthony

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the L, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The L is thy keeper: the L is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moonby night.The L shall preservetheefromallevil: he shall preserve thy soul. The L shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

—Bible (Old Testament)

All punishment ismischief: all punishment in itself is evil.

—Bentham,Jeremy

Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.Benot wise inyourown conceits.Recompenseto no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written,Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

—Bible (NewTestament)

All the arguments which are brought to represent povertyasno evil, show ittobe evidentlyagreatevil.You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you,That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

—Bible (NewTestament)

For the love of money is the root of all evil.

—Bible (NewTestament)

The root of Evil, Avarice That damn'd ill-natur'd, baneful Vice, Was Slave to Prodigality, That noble Sin; whilst Luxury Employed a Million of the Poor, And odious Pride a Million more; Envy itself, and Vanity, Were Ministers of Industry; Their darling Folly, Fickleness, In Diet, Furniture and Dress That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made That very Wheel that turned theTrade.

—Mandeville, Bernard

What characterizes a member of a minority group isthat he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.

—Mailer, Norman Kingsley

Those who set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.

—Chesnutt, Charles Waddell

   But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

—Bible (NewTestament)

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

—Bible (NewTestament)

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

—Connor, Sir William Neil pseudonym Cassandra

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:ö We murder to dissect. Enough of science and of art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.

—Wordsworth,William

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

—Bible (Old Testament)

   I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.

—Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)

Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues.

—Milton,John

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise isgone! it isgone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

—Burke, Edmund

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? An older woman knows. But how much older do you have to get before you acquire that kind of wisdom?

—Atwood, Margaret Eleanor

The Old Testament makes woman a mere after-thought in creation; the author of evil; cursed in her maternity; a subject in marriage; and all female life, animal and human, unclean.

—Stanton, Elizabeth ne¤  e  Cady

That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness.

—Milton,John