Charles Baudelaire on good and evil

It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. As it turns out, work is less boring than amusing oneself.

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

You gave me your mud and I have turned it to gold.

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke1729–1797

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Blaise Pascal1623–1662

• Anti-Religion

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

Albert Einstein1879–1955