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Topics/Morality

Quotes about good and evil

192 quotes from 117 people

Most readBy personPage 12 of 13

The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Chapter 3In context
I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Chapter 2In context
- Advice
Of evils current upon earth
The worst is money. Money ’tis that sacks
Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home;
Warps and seduces native innocence,
And breeds a habit of dishonesty.
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone (c. 441 BC), spoken by CreonIn context
- Money
A good man, through obscurest aspiration,
Has still an instinct of the one true way.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Prologue in Heaven, spoken by The LordIn context
- Character
Part of that Power, not understood,
Which always wills the Bad, and always works the Good.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene III, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
I am the Spirit that Denies!
And justly so: for all things, from the Void
Called forth, deserve to be destroyed:
’Twere better, then, were naught created.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene III, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
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
The world seems full of good men⁠—even if there are monsters in it.
Bram Stoker1847–1912Dracula (1897), Chapter XVIIIn context
All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.
Daniel Defoe1660–1731Robinson Crusoe (1719), Chapter IVIn context
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Macbeth (c. 1606), Act III, Scene II, spoken by MacbethIn context
All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord harmony not understood;
All partial evil universal good;
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, ‘Whatever is, is right.
Alexander Pope1688–1744An Essay on Man (1733–1734), Epistle IIn context
- Philosophy
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
For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.
Walter Scott1771–1832Ivanhoe (1819), Chapter XXXIIIIn context
- Power
The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature
George Eliot1819–1880Silas Marner (1861), Part I, Chapter IIIIn context
Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would!
Thomas Hardy1840–1928Jude the Obscure (1895), Part Fifth: At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Nature