Famously Said Random quote

Topics/Morality

Quotes about good and evil

192 quotes from 117 people

Most readBy personPage 6 of 13

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
Hesiod776–700 BCWorks and Days (c. 700 BC), Line 240
He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.
Hesiod776–700 BCWorks and Days (c. 700 BC)
Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.
Hermann Hesse1877–1962Siddhartha (1922)
God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.
Augustine of Hippo354–430Enchiridion (c. 420 ), Ch. 27
- God
For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”
Augustine of Hippo354–430The City of God, Book XI, ch. 9
State interference is an evil, where it cannot be shown to be a good.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935The Common Law (1881), pp. 88-96
- Government
Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul.
Victor Hugo1802–1885Les Misérables (1862), Volume I: Fantine, Book First: A Just Man, Chapter VIIIn context
- Fear
But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
Isaiah766–686 BCThe Book of Isaiah (c. 800–500 B.C.), 57:20-21, King James Version
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah766–686 BCIsaiah 5:20 (KJV)
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Jesus7 BC–AD 30The Sermon on the Mount
- Religion
Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
Jesus7 BC–AD 30The Gospel of Matthew (1611), Matthew 16:23 (KJV)In context
Get thee behind me, Satan
Jesus7 BC–AD 30The Gospel of Mark (1611), Mark 8:33 (KJV)In context
How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God.
Pope John Paul II1920–2005Speech delivered at the Yad Vashem Museum at Jerusalem, Israel—March 23, 2000
- God
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)
- Virtue
There are moments when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil, are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be made whole.
Helen Keller1880–1968The Story of My Life (1903), Ch. 21