Evil Quotes - Page 23

• Mr. President, the cause of this great discontent in the country, the cause of the evils which we now suffer and which we now fear, originates chiefly from questions growing out of the respective rights of the different States and the unfortunate subject of slavery.

  John J. Crittenden

  Country, War, Rights

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• If a man sets his heart on benevolence he will be free from evil.

  Confucius

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Heart

  Confucius (1979). “Lunyu”

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• Wars are not all evil, they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, World, Machinery

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• When our conscience bothers us, whether we admit it or not, we often try to justify it by correcting others, or by finding fault with them. The readiness to believe evil about others is in large part ammunition for a thousand scandals in our own hearts.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Believe, Heart, Judgement

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• Human life cannot be formless. We live by patterns. We move in comradeships. Conformity is evil when it distorts, flattens, and erases fruitful ways, strong ideas, natural identities; it is evil when it is a steamroller. But a man cannot escape being part of a milieu - and a recognizable part - unless he flees naked to a cave, never to return. The sensible thing is to use hard thinking to find the right way to live and then to live that way. What matters is living with dignity, with decency, and without fear.

  Herman Wouk

  Strong, Moving, Men

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• But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crimes. For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy: 1492. The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Teacher, Children, Pride

  Kurt Vonnegut (1973). “Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday!”, Dell

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• If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have...they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word.

  Lewis B. Smedes

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Memories

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• To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils; but to prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine.

  Isaac Watts

  Forgiveness, Wise, Mean

  Isaac Watts (1813). “The Improvement of the Mind: Or, A Supplement to the Art of Logic”, p.331

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• Blunted unto goodness is the heart which anger never stirreth, but that which hatred swelleth, is keen to carve out evil.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Hate, Heart, Hatred

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1871). “Proverbial philosophy: in 4 ser., now first complete”, p.52

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• You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn.

  T. H. White

  Inspirational, Education, Teacher

  T. H. White (2011). “The Once and Future King”, p.161, Penguin

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• Here is my challenge. Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first - I have been asking it for some time - awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Faith, Religious, Thinking

  "An Atheist Responds" by Christopher Hitchens, www.washingtonpost.com. July 14, 2007.

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• In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Law, People, Anarchy

  Peter Kropotkin (2012). “Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings”, p.196, Courier Corporation

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• There are some troubles from which mankind can never escape .... have never claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow from authority .... As a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a choice of evils, liberty is the smaller. Then liberty always says the Anarchist. No use of force except against the invader.

  Benjamin Tucker

  Blessing, Perfection, Choices

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• The State is said by some to be a necessary evil; it must be made unnecessary.

  Benjamin Tucker

  Anarchy, Unnecessary, States

  Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1972). “Instead of a Book”

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• Thus does a 'necessary evil' become an idol. Maybe we're stuck with it. But do we have to worship it?

  Joseph Sobran

  Idols, Doe, Anarchy

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• The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends.

  Walter E. Williams

  Government, Essence, Anarchy

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• Heretics are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned unheard, and whilst they perish by fire, the faithful ought to pursue the evil to its source, and bathe their heads in the blood of the Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is the devil in disguise.

  Martin Luther

  Fire, Blood, Catholic

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• Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of His fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil.

  John Calvin

  Fellowship, Kind, Lord

  John Calvin (2009). “The Christian Life”, p.14, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• To do nothing evil is good; to wish nothing evil is better.

  Claudius

  Wish

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• Lo, how to conquer evil thoughts?Easy! One thing, just try -Imagine you are the ocean vast,You are the boundless sky.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Ocean, Sky, Trying

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• Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Tyrants, Effort

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.136, Penguin

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• To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it.

  Ayn Rand

  Neutrality, Sanctions, Implying

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.435, Penguin

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• Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Long, Forgiving

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.108, Penguin

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• An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil... Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Animal, Men

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.75, Penguin

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• Kant is the most evil man in mankind's history.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Mankind, Evil Man

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.255, Penguin

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