Daniel Defoe on good and evil

All men would be tyrants if they could.

Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.

We never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.

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