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Topics/Morality

Quotes about good and evil

192 quotes from 117 people

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The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Merchant of Venice (c. 1597), Act I, Scene III, spoken by AntonioIn context
- Truth & Lies
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Merchant of Venice (c. 1597), Act V, Scene I, spoken by PortiaIn context
- Virtue
Anything that’s mended is but patched; virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Twelfth Night (c. 1601), Act I, Scene V, spoken by ClownIn context
- Virtue
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
William Shakespeare1564–1616Richard III (c. 1593), Act I, Scene I, spoken by RichardIn context
- Love
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With odd old ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Richard III (c. 1593), Act I, Scene III, spoken by RichardIn context
- Religion
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Hamlet (c. 1600), Act I, Scene V, spoken by GhostIn context
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Macbeth (c. 1606), Act III, Scene II, spoken by MacbethIn context
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Measure for Measure (c. 1604), Act II, Scene I, spoken by EscalusIn context
- Virtue
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Devil’s Disciple, Act II (1901)
- Morality
Those who understand evil pardon it.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Maxims for Revolutionists (1903), #167
- Forgiveness
The salvation of the world depends on the men who will not take evil good-humouredly, and whose laughter destroys the fool instead of encouraging him.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)
- Laughter
Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.
Mary Shelley1797–1851Frankenstein (1818), Chapter XIn context
- Happiness
- Virtue
All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment: I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me; and, finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.
Mary Shelley1797–1851Frankenstein (1818), Chapter XVIIn context
- Anger
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
The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn1918–2008The Gulag Archipelago (1973)