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Topics/Morality

Quotes about good and evil

192 quotes from 117 people

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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
Nazism and Fascism are thoroughly beaten, but I must admit that their defeat does not mean that barbarism and brutality have been defeated.
Karl Popper1902–1994Utopia and Violence (1947)
- War & Peace
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
Ayn Rand1905–1982Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
- Morality
I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004Dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (1991)
I urge you to beware the temptation of pride⁠—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004The Evil Empire (1983)
- War & Peace
Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004The Evil Empire (1983)
- Government
War with evil; but show no spirit of malignity toward the man who may be responsible for the evil. Put it out of his power to do wrong.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1910)
The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible, but the forces of truth and love and courage and honesty and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever before.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919The Man with the Muck Rake (1906)
You may either win your peace, or buy it:⁠—win it, by resistance to evil;⁠—buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin1819–1900The Two Paths (1859)
Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
- Morality
People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Letter to Ottoline Morrell, 17 December, 1920
- Power
I see the triumph of good over evil as a manifestation of the error-correcting process of evolution.
Jonas Salk1914–1995Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Malice is of a low Stature, but it hath very long Arms.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax1633–1695Political Thoughts and Reflections
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