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Evil Quotes

Browse 10263 quotes about Evil.

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Evil Quotes

“Love of peace is common among weak, short-sighted, timid, and lazy persons; and on the other hand courage is found among many men of evil temper and bad character. Neither quality shall by itself avail. Justice among the nations of mankind, and the uplifting of humanity, can be brought about only by those strong and daring men who with wisdom love peace, but who love righteousness more than peace.”

MenLovePersonsCharacterHandsAgeHumanityEvilFoundStrongNationsJusticeCommonQualityMankindWeakUpliftingLazyRighteousnessTemperDaringPeace LoveShort SightedBad CharacterLove Wisdom
Book:Bully!
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“I usually make up stories for my kids.I like to tell them stories and make up any kind of crazy to involve them in characters. The kind of fairytales I don't like are the ones with happy endings, where there's just good and evil and things are perfect. I think when there's a good story for children it has a moral tale, so that's what I try to teach my kids.”

ThinkingTryingKindChildrenCharacterStoriesKidsEvilPerfectMoralTeachCrazyTalesGood And EvilHappy EndingsGood StoryFairytale
Author:Angelina Jolie
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“The whole gamut of good and evil is in every human being, certain notes, from stronger original quality or most frequent use, appearing to form the whole character; but they are only the tones most often heard. The whole scale is in every soul, and the notes most seldom heard will on rare occasions make themselves audible.”

HumansSoulWholeCharacterUseFormCertainEvilHuman BeingsQualityHeardStrongerOriginalsNotesScalesOccasionsToneGood And EvilAppearingRare Occasion
Author:Fanny Kemble
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“It is difficult to say which is the greatest evil--to have too violent passions, or to be wholly devoid of them. Controlled with firmness, guided by discretion, and hallowed by the imagination, the passions are the vivifiers and quickeners of our being. Without passion there can be no energy of character. Indeed, the passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways, and dangerous only in one--through their excess.”

WayCharacterPassionEvilEnergyDifficultImaginationFireDangerousThousandViolentControlledExcessDiscretionFirmnessNo Energy
Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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“What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be only the out-growth of our own perverted life; and though we may endeavor to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of human life and character are radically improved.”

HumansMayMeanCharacterFormLawEvilFoundSocialGrowthCuttingConditionsSpringDown AndHuman LifeEndeavorAccustomedSocial Evils
Book:Self-help
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“The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.”

MenHumansCharacterPurposeSufferingHumanityEvilMoralOpinionHellProgressHe ManStandardsConscienceIntentionCrueltyOppressionGood ManOppressedInjuredGood IntentionsTreasonHuman SufferingPersonal CharacterMoral Evil
Author:Robert Briffault
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“As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.”

PeopleBelieveHumansCharacterCertainEvilSocialPsychologyConditionsOrdinaryTransformationPressureHistoricalCommitInquiryOrdinary PeopleUnthinkableBanalitySocial Pressure
Author:Philip Zimbardo
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“The "Lucifer Effect" describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. It represents a transformation of human character that is significant in its consequences. Such transformations are more likely to occur in novel settings, in "total situations," where social situational forces are sufficiently powerful to overwhelm, or set aside temporally, personal attributes of morality, compassion, or sense of justice and fair play.”

FirstsHumansPersonsPlayCharacterActionEvilForceSocialJusticePowerfulCompassionSituationNovelEffectsMoralityNormalOrdinaryConsequenceFairsCrossesTransformationSignificantBoundariesSettingSettingsGood And EvilAttributesLuciferFair Play
Author:Philip Zimbardo
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“The press, important as is its office, is but the servant of the human intellect, and its ministry is for good or for evil, according to the character of those who direct it. The press is a mill which grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain, and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.”

HumansImportantCharacterEvilOfficeDirectPressesIntellectNewspapersBreadServantMealsGrainMinistryGrindMills
Author:William C. Bryant
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“For the man who makes everything that leads to happiness, or near to it, to depend upon himself, and not upon other men, on whose good or evil actions his own doings are compelled to hinge,--such a one, I say, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation; this is the man of manly character and of wisdom.”

MenCharacterActionEvilPlansHe ManDependsModerationManhoodCompelledAdoptedMasculineManlyHingesDoingsLiving Happily
Book:Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
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“It is very singular how the fact of a man's death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and acting among them.”

PeopleMenGivingIdeasCharacterFactsSeemsDeathEvilActingAppreciationPossessed
Book:Complete Novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition): Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, The Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, Grimshawe's Secret and Biography
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“The life of any one can by no means be changed after death; an evil life can in no wise be converted into a good life, or an infernal into an angelic life: because every spirit, from head to foot, is of the character of his love, and therefore, of his life; and to convert this life into its opposite, would be to destroy the spirit utterly.”

MeanCharacterWould BeSpiritEvilChangeWiseFeetChangedOppositesThis LifeGood LifeHis LoveAfter DeathAngelic
Book:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg
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“Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing.”

MindMayCharacterEvilOpportunityWealthMoralObjectsEssentialsRootsRelationNoblePursuitAttributesCompetenceLove Of Money
Book:The Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession. An Address Delivered Before the Mercantile Library Association, Etc
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“The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser's intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture's dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers. When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.”

PeopleMenCharacterTurnsCultureEvilWinningLeaderFailingWorstMankindIntellectualAverageMinoritiesCowardTrendsInvitesDominantBrutesThugAverage ManIrrationalityEvil ManAbdication
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“'Dallas' hit a chord back in the late Seventies and Eighties because it was the age of greed: here you have this unapologetic character who is mean and nasty and ruthless and does it all with an evil grin. I think people related to JR back then because we all have someone we know exactly like him. Everyone in the world knows a JR.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldMeanDoeCharacterAgeEvilLateGreedRelatedNastySeventiesChordsEightyRuthlessDallasUnapologetic
Author:Larry Hagman
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“Barrie and the wonderful characters he created, Lewis Carroll, even French literature, like Baudelaire or over in the States, Poe, you open those books, you open The Flowers of Evil and begin to read. If it were written today, you'd be absolutely stupefied by the work. It's this incredible period where the work is timeless, ageless. So yeah, I just love all those guys. It's my deep passion in those great 19th century writers.”

IfsBookStatesCharacterTodayGuyPassionEvilLiteratureWonderfulWrittenCenturyFlowerPeriodsYeahIncrediblesWorking ItTimeless19th CenturyAgelessFrench LiteratureBaudelaireDeep Passion
Author:Johnny Depp
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“Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in aprivative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight.”

MenMayMeanDoeCharacterWould BeEvilTakenGoodnessNegativeSightMereSpeedAbsenceLionsDisplayBlindnessGoatsPossessingNegation
Book:Philosophical Texts
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“(I)t is simply wrong to confuse cowardice with appeasement. Cowardice is a failing of character. Appeasement is a failure of policy. Stalin appeased Hitler when he signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Stalin was an evil character, to be sure. But cowardice really isn't the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Stalin ' that word is “sexy.” I'm kidding, I'm kidding.”

ThinkingMindFirstsCharacterEvilFailingPolicySexyCowardicePactAppeasementMolotovEvil Characters
Author:Jonah Goldberg
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“A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.”

WholeCharacterEvilLostOpinionVirtueEffectsProduceDespairVicesLocalsReputationFormerLatterFlingPerniciousOffendersMalady
Author:Thomas B. Macaulay
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“The divine within you is stronger than anything that is without you. Therefore, be not afraid of anything. Rely on your own Inner Self, the Divinity within you. Tap the source through looking within. Improve yourself. Build your character. Purify the heart. Develop the divine virtues. Eradicate evil traits. Conquer all that is base in you. Endeavor to attain all that is worthy and noble. Make the lower nature the servant of the higher through discipline, Tapas, self-restraint and meditation. This is the beginning of your freedom.”

HeartSelfCharacterEvilVirtueMeditationDivineSourceHigherDisciplineStrongerWorthyNobleConquerServantRelyDivinityEndeavorNot AfraidTraitsWithin YouRestraintWithout YouInner SelfYour FreedomSelf RestraintImproving YourselfTapas
Author:Sivananda
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“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

KnowsWritingCharacterHandsEvilLanguageKnow HowVirtueHonestyIntegrityStandingInnocentInnocenceGood And EvilPower Of WordsPowerlessCreative WritingDictionaryGood WritingGood WritersGreat WritersFiction WritersWritten WordGreat WritingRight WordsGood WordsGood Against EvilGood EvilWritten LanguageWriting WordsLanguage WordsPower Of LanguageLanguage And Power
Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne
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“Barbarity, caprice; these qualities, however nominally disguised, we may universally observe from the ruling character of the deity in all regular religions.”

MayCharacterEvilReligiousQualityRulingDeitiesCapriceBarbarity
Book:An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion
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“What intrigues me is that people kind of naturally want to label or pigeonhole the characters. They want to make it easy for themselves to go, "All right. There's the good guy, there's the bad guy, there's the girl. Okay, I get it now." But life isn't one-dimensional. The world isn't simply divided into good versus evil. I think we're all capable of both. So any time the hero does something I'm not crazy about, or the bad guy does something I can relate to, I'll find it more interesting.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWantKindDoeI CanCharacterGuyGirlEvilEasyInterestingCrazyHeroCapableOkayLabelsRelateDividedVersusIntrigueBad GuysGood Guy
Author:Alexander Skarsgard
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