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Quote by S. Kelley Harrell

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S. Kelley Harrell

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“Kuwepo kwa Mti wa Uzima wa Milele katika Bustani ya Edeni (pamoja) na Mti wa Maarifa ya Mema na Mabaya inamaanisha, Adamu na Hawa walikuwa hai kiroho mpaka walipokula tunda la mti wa katikati ambapo hali yao ya maisha ilibadilika. Adamu na Hawa walikufa lakini hawakufa – walikufa baadaye kabisa. Hii inamaanisha kwamba (haya ni mawazo yangu tu) mtu anapokufa anakuwa amekula tunda la mti wa katikati, litakalomwezesha kuendelea kuishi katika hali nyingine ya maisha ambayo sisi hatuijui.”

“For when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so only on the strictly factual level, pointing to a phenomenon which stared one in the face at the trial. Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III 'to prove a villain.' Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all… He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is 'banal' and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, this is still far from calling it commonplace… That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man—that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem.”

“So let the reader who expects this book to be a political exposé slam its covers shut right now. If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil. Socrates taught us: Know thyself! Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't.”