“Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with- their "loved ones" or friends or business associates or political rulers- are not merely mistaken, but evil. Observe that this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge.”

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand - “Observe how many people evade, rationalize...” 1

Similar quotes

“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 Rand
Read more

“There is no ideal in observation. When you have an ideal, you cease to observe, you are then merely approximating the present to the idea, and therefore there is duality, conflict, and all the rest of it. The mind has to be in the state when it can see, observe. The experience of the observation is really an astonishing state. In that there is no duality. The mind is simply - aware.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Read more

“If one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continued rebellion against God!”

George Whitefield
Read more

“I don't like using the word evil because it sounds as if that's all there is to be said about the person. I don't think Richard III is evil, I don't think it's helpful to say that...Iago he's not evil. Iago didn't get the job, he thinks his wife's been unfaithful to him, he doesn't like black people, he's extremely talented and very unfulfilled and he's a wonderful liar, and he's a mischeif maker and he does some dreadful, dreadful things. But that's already interesting, isn't it? Ooh, who is this guy? But if you just say "ah oh he's evil" how can you play that? I don't know how you play an evil person.”

Ian McKellan
Read more

“Americans were convinced in their own minds that they were very miserable, and those who think so are so. There is nothing so easy as to persuade people that they are badly governed. Take happy and comfortable people and talk to them with the art of the evil one, and they can soon be made discontented with their government, their rulers, with everything around them, and even with themselves.”

Thomas Hutchinson
Read more