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Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.”

Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Author

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

French author known for his wit and moral maxims. His works delve deeply into the flaws of human nature and the hypocrisy of society. more

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“No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.”

Ifs Humans Matter Government Evil Kindness Ill Noble Objectives Human Life Suspicion Wickedness Decency Blur Ill Will Evil Government

Book:The Passionate State of Mind

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“Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.”

Self Evil Enjoy Moral Slavery Pleasant Wickedness Reducing

Book:The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle

Source: The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle

“The dead are all holy, even they that were base and wicked while alive. Their baseness and wickedness was not they, was but the heavy and unmanageable environment that lay round them.”

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Book:Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished

Source: Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished

“We know that it is possible to harness desire to many interests, that evil is one form of a desire, and not the nature of it.”

Knows Form Desire Evil Interest Wickedness Harness

Book:A Preface to Politics

Source: A Preface to Politics

“Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”

Soul Spirit Wise Depression Stronger Adversity Trials Temptation Overcoming Adversity Hindrance Inspirational Adversity Weathered Adversity Motivational Trials And Temptations Temptation Life Overcome Trials

Author:James Buckham Kennedy

“Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the aesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly.”

Men World May Reason Beautiful Evil Force Understanding Teach Doubt Evolution Increase Ugly Intuition Tendencies Reason Why Good And Evil Faculty Cosmic Aesthetic Diminish Incompetent

Book:Collected essays

Source: Collected essays

“D'you know how embarrassing it is to mention good and evil in a scientific laboratory? Have you any idea? One of the reasons I became a scientist was not to have to think about that kind of thing.”

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Book:The subtle knife

Source: The subtle knife

“Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.”

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Book:The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, With Special References to the Harnessing of

Source: The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, With Special References to the Harnessing of

“Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.”

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Author:Bernard Baruch

“The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.”