Alexander Pope on good and evil

How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.

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