Edmund Burke on good and evil

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

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

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

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

Socrates470–399 BCII: xxxi. Original Greek: ἓν μόνον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, τὴν ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν, τὴν ἀμαθίαν

• Knowledge