John Steinbeck Quotes About Evil

Quotes about: Evil

• I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

  John Steinbeck

  Life, Kindness, Believe

• A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?

  John Steinbeck

  Life, Integrity, Character

  John Steinbeck (1952). “East of Eden, And, The Wayward Bus”

• I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.... The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

  John Steinbeck

  Believe, Eggs, Eden

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.66, Penguin

• We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

  John Steinbeck

  Eden, Evil, Vices

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.363, Penguin

• Look now — in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst sin we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, 'Use it well, use it wisely.' We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. And we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training.

  John Steinbeck

  Brother, Men, Hands

  "East of Eden".

• We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

  John Steinbeck

  Evil, Stories, Novel

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.325, Penguin

• Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fences, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our own hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

  John Steinbeck

  Strong, Fall, Angel

• Yes, you will. And I will warn you now that not their blood but your suspicion might build evil in them. They will be what you expect of them…I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb." "You can’t make a race horse of a pig." "No," said Samuel, "but you can make a very fast pig.

  John Steinbeck

  Horse, Children, Men

• This was an evil beyond thinking. The killing of a man was not so evil as the killing of a boat. For a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect itself, and a wounded boat does not heal.

  John Steinbeck

  Son, Men, Thinking

  John Steinbeck (1994). “The Pearl”, p.60, Penguin

• It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leporous.

  John Steinbeck

  Angel, White, Snow

  John Steinbeck (2009). “The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.50, Penguin

• There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good.

  John Steinbeck

  Evil, World, Magnificence

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.115, Penguin

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