34 Memorable Quotes On Evil

In the complex tapestry of human history, the concept of evil has been a persistent and intriguing thread, challenging philosophers, writers, and thinkers to explore its various dimensions. From ancient parables to modern literature, the struggle between good and evil is a narrative that resonates deeply within us all. Whether portrayed through mythical tales or real-world events, the nature of evil compels us to reflect on humanity's darkest impulses and moral dilemmas. In this blog post, we delve into a curated collection of 34 memorable quotes on evil, offering insights and ponderings from different perspectives. These powerful words serve not only as a mirror to our fears and struggles but also as a beacon to guide us in understanding the complex interplay between darkness and light.

1. “SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of deathOffends the September night.Accurate scholarship canUnearth the whole offenceFrom Luther until nowThat has driven a culture mad,Find what occurred at Linz,What huge imago madeA psychopathic god:I and the public knowWhat all schoolchildren learn,Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.Exiled Thucydides knewAll that a speech can sayAbout Democracy,And what dictators do,The elderly rubbish they talkTo an apathetic grave;Analysed all in his book,The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.Into this neutral airWhere blind skyscrapers useTheir full height to proclaimThe strength of Collective Man,Each language pours its vainCompetitive excuse:But who can live for longIn an euphoric dream;Out of the mirror they stare,Imperialism's faceAnd the international wrong.Faces along the barCling to their average day:The lights must never go out,The music must always play,All the conventions conspireTo make this fort assumeThe furniture of home;Lest we should see where we are,Lost in a haunted wood,Children afraid of the nightWho have never been happy or good.The windiest militant trashImportant Persons shoutIs not so crude as our wish:What mad Nijinsky wroteAbout DiaghilevIs true of the normal heart;For the error bred in the boneOf each woman and each manCraves what it cannot have,Not universal loveBut to be loved alone.From the conservative darkInto the ethical lifeThe dense commuters come,Repeating their morning vow;'I will be true to the wife,I'll concentrate more on my work,'And helpless governors wakeTo resume their compulsory game:Who can release them now,Who can reach the dead,Who can speak for the dumb?All I have is a voiceTo undo the folded lie,The romantic lie in the brainOf the sensual man-in-the-streetAnd the lie of AuthorityWhose buildings grope the sky:There is no such thing as the StateAnd no one exists alone;Hunger allows no choiceTo the citizen or the police;We must love one another or die.Defenseless under the nightOur world in stupor lies;Yet, dotted everywhere,Ironic points of lightFlash out wherever the JustExchange their messages:May I, composed like themOf Eros and of dust,Beleaguered by the sameNegation and despair,Show an affirming flame.” - W.H. Auden

2. “I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."[From the Preface]” - C.S. Lewis

3. “True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good--and we all know how rare that is...” - Jasper Fforde

4. “I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.” - Santa Teresa de Jesús

5. “Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.)” - Friedrich Nietzsche

6. “In this treacherous worldNothing is the truth nor a lie.Everything depends on the colorOf the crystal through which one sees it” - Pedro Calderón de la Barca

7. “The canter is a cure for every evil.” - Benjamin Disraeli

8. “There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.” - Arthur Machen

9. “The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interred with their bones.” - William Shakespeare

10. “Looks like what drives me crazyDon't have no effect on you--But I'm gonna keep on at itTill it drives you crazy, too.” - Langston Hughes

11. “I blinked at her, suddenly loathing her to the depths of my soul. Not only was she probably rather evil, and definitely thoroughly unpleasant, but she also didn't read.” - Nicole Peeler

12. “Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness for the night is yours," muttered Locke, pointing the first two fingers of his left hand into the darkness. The Dagger of the Thirteenth, a thief's gesture against evil. "Your night is my cloak, my shield, my escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made the night my friend.""Bless the Benefactor," said Jean, squeezing Locke's left forearm. "Peace and profit to his children.” - Scott Lynch

13. “no one wanted to look at the common evils of society. Very few were willing to put aside their own pursuit of happiness long enough to consider the effects of greed and jealousy around them. From what she'd seen, humans were essentially troubled. For every one behind bars, another ten deserved to be behind bars, but that would put one in ten Americans behind bars.” - Ted Dekker

14. “Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

15. “The sole social evil is darkness; humanity is identity, for all men are made of the same clay.” - Victor Hugo

16. “What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil. Was there any justification for what they did—or was there? We only know what that thing says, and that thing is a captive. The Asian radio has to say what will least displease it's government; ours has to say what will least displease our fine patriotic opinionated rabble, which is what, coincidentally, the government wants it to say anyhow, so where's the difference?” - Walter M. Miller

17. “My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are the six elements of a Sacred Harp alto: rage, darkness, motherhood, earth, malice, and sex. Once you feel it, you can always do it. You know where to go for it, though it will cost you.” - Mary Rose O'Reilley

18. “When it comes to judging individuals, I do not like remarks such as 'too good to be true.' They speak as though one is rewarding the nature of evil. Yet, ironically, we still wonder where all the good people have gone.” - Criss Jami

19. “It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous. Folly, heedlessness, vanity, pride, craft, meanness, stupidity - yes. But even Iagos in this world are few, and devilry is as rare as witchcraft. ("Bad Company")” - Walter de la Mare

20. “Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think.” - Pope Benedict-XVI

21. “Possibility, or what we refer to as imagination, is 99% imitation. The real deal is only 1%. The problem is, this 1% is simultaneously referred to as Evil.” - Kouhei Kadono

22. “The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless.” - Hayao Miyazaki

23. “The tyrant is a child of PrideWho drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity,Until from his high crest headlongHe plummets to the dust of hope.” - Sophocles

24. “The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.” - Honoré de Balzac

25. “Jan could not recall ever seeing a creature more beautiful, though there nagged somewhere at the back of his mind the notion that she ought to have seemed hideous. Why? For she was pure, admirably pure, without a twinge of conscience or shame.” - Meredith Ann Pierce

26. “If you throw stones on my way to stumble and I fall, you try to put extra care when passing my way, lest you stumble and fall.” - Miguel Ángel Sáez Gutiérrez

27. “My hate is general, I detest all men;Some because they are wicked and do evil,Others because they tolerate the wicked,Refusing them the active vigorous scornWhich vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.” - Molière

28. “Au temps de La Barbarie à visage humain, je disais, comme Camus : l'idéologie est un multiplicateur de massacres ; on tue d'autant plus, et en d'autant plus grand nombre, qu'on le fait dans la bonne conscience de hâter, ce faisant, l'avènement du Bien - communisme, fascisme, angélismes exterminateurs de toutes sortes, ivresse logique des assassins. (...) non ; c'est le contraire ; le pire ce sont les massacres aveugles ; le plus redoutable ce sont les exterminations que rien ne déclenche mais que rien, du coup, n'est capable d'arrêter ; gare à ceux pour qui le fait de tuer un homme n'a pas plus de sens ni d'importance que de trancher une tête de chou ! gare au démon, non de l'Absolu, mais du Néant ! (ch. 10De l'insensé, encore)” - Bernard-Henri Levy

29. “Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and one another?” - Leo Tolstoy

30. “Evil…doesn’t mean doing things that have bad consequences for people. It means private thoughts and actions that are not to “the Christian majority’s” private liking.” - Richard Dawkins

31. “If we could only learn to look on evil as evil, whether it's clothed in filth or monotony or magnificence.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

32. “What is forgotten, however, is that many times the Good we create leads to Evil that will destroy us.” - Amish Tripathi

33. “A world compelled to good alone is as much a shrine to compulsion as a world compelled to evil only.The Twenty-first Voyage” - Stanisław Lem

34. “Twill be the end of us all when it comes...The moon will devour the sun...The sea will rise in a great wave and drown the world...The Realms will fall...Evil will crawl across the land.” - Sam J. Charlton