Quotes about good and evil
192 quotes from 117 people
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Socrates470–399 BCII: xxxi. Original Greek: ἓν μόνον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, τὴν ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν, τὴν ἀμαθίανIt is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Plato429–349 BCAttributed to Plato on the letterhead of the Constitution Party. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations compiled by The Library of Congress. Mineola, N.Y., Dover Publications, 2010.There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), Volume i, p. 526
Anne Frank1929–1945The Diary of a Young Girl (1942—1944), 15 July 1944It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936In The Illustrated London News (23 October 1909)
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
