Quotes about good and evil
192 quotes from 117 people
Edmund Burke1729–1797Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Volume iii, p. 332No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.
Thomas Aquinas1225–1274On the Ten Commandments (c. 1273), Art. 1Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Written statement in trial for sedition, March 1922Iago’s soliloquy—the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity—how awful it is!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772–1834Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and Other English Poets (1811–1818), Part II: “The Lectures and Notes of 1818”, Section IV: “Notes on Some Other Plays of Shakespeare”, § “Othello”, p. 388God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.
Augustine of Hippo354–430Enchiridion (c. 420 ), Ch. 27It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man.
Albert Einstein1879–1955The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men, The New York Times Magazine (June 23, 1946)Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785) (17 September 1773)Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. Auden1907–1973Another Time (1940), “People and Places”, XIII: “Herman Melville”The object of punishment is, prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Horace Mann1796–1859Lectures on Education (1855), Lecture 7I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Part II, Chapter 13
Pope John Paul II1920–2005Speech delivered at the Yad Vashem Museum at Jerusalem, Israel—March 23, 2000
John Ruskin1819–1900The Two Paths (1859)
Herbert Spencer1820–1903First Principles (1862), Pt. I, The Unknowable
Isaiah766–686 BCThe Book of Isaiah (c. 800–500 B.C.), 57:20-21, King James Version
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)