This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place." - Joseph de Maistre, fully Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre
"In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence. A kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die and how many are killed; but, from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A Power, a violence, at once hidden and palpable. . . has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. . . And who [in this general carnage] exterminates him who will exterminate all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man. . . The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death." - Joseph de Maistre, fully Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre
"It is not those innocent of evil who are fullest of the life of God, but those who in their own case have experienced the triumph over evil." - Josiah Royce
"The greater evil who is in- when both in wayward paths are straying? The poor sinner for the pain or he who pays for the sin?" - Juana Inés de la Cruz
"No one is moral among the god-controlled puppets of the Iliad. Good and evil do not exist." - Julian Jaynes
"We cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all, that good outweighs evil in the just balances of the universe and at the 11th hour something gloriously triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens." - Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
"Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us. This is the message of old religions and new psychiatries. Unless this message is heard, unless we ... can give up our delicious satisfactions in opportunities for vengeful retaliation on scapegoats, we cannot expect to preserve our peace, our public safety, or our mental health... the punitive attitude persists. And just so long as the spirit of vengeance has the slightest vestige of respectability, so long as it pervades the public mind and infuses its evil upon the statute books of the law, we will make no headway toward the control of crime. We cannot assess the most appropriate and effective penalties so long as we seek to inflict retaliatory pain. " - Karl Menninger, fully Karl Augustus Menninger
"Principles can always be used toward evil ends, so maybe if these principles never existed, the bad person wouldn't be able to do so much harm. " - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"There is no greater evil than making light of the enemy... There is nothing so unfortunate as entering lightly into battle, for by so doing we are in danger of losing that which is most precious. " - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"So it is the fear, weakness, selfishness, and cowardice of onlookers that permit evil behavior to persist." - Laura Schlesinger, fully Laura Catherine Schlessinger, aka Dr. Laura
"Man seldom questions the fact that ugliness and evil are to be found in the world. But he's never as ready to accept that life also offers unlimited beauty and potential for joy as well as endless opportunities for pleasure." - Leo Busacaglia
"Having then for the first time clearly understood that before every man, and before himself, there lay only suffering, death, and eternal oblivion, he had concluded that to live under such conditions was impossible; that one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself. But he had done neither the one nor the other, yet he continued to live, think, and feel, had even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was not thinking of the meaning of his life. What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"Whereas at present, every man, even, if free, asks himself, " What can I do alone against all this ocean of evil and deceit which overwhelms us? Why should I express my opinion? Why indeed possess one? It is better not to reflect on these misty and involved questions. Perhaps these contradictions are an inevitable condition of our existence. And why should I struggle alone with all the evil in the world ? Is it not better to go with the stream which carries me along ? If anything can be done, it must be done not alone but in company with others."" - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"The best known evil is the most tolerable. " - Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
"The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections." - John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
"How sacred, how beautiful, is the feeling of affection in pure and guileless bosoms! The proud may sneer at it, the fashionable may call it fable, the selfish and dissipated may affect to despise it; but the holy passion is surely of heaven, and is made evil by the corruptions of those whom it was sent to bless and to preserve." - Lord Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough and 2st Earl of Monmouth
"Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character. " - John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
"So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds." - Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
"What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists. That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field. That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning. This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it. That life is the world. That my will penetrates the world. That my will is good or evil. Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world. The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father. To pray is to think about the meaning of life. " - Ludwig Wittgenstein, fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
"It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong; the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil can be overcome by physical means." - Lydia Maria Child
"Whereas the comic confronts simply logical contradictions, the tragic confronts a moral predicament. Not minor matters of true and false but crucial questions of right and wrong, good and evil face the tragic character in a tragic situation." - M. C. Swabey, fully Marie Taylor Collins Swabey
"The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life -- particularly human life -- such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"As one acts and conducts himself, so does he become. The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action." - Maitri Upanishad or Maitrayaniya Upanishad
"Pain is either an evil for the body - and if so, let the body state its case - or for the soul; but the soul can maintain its own unclouded calm, and refuse to view it as an evil. " - Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
"The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity, as often happens in old-time discipline... A room in which all the children move about usefully, intelligently, and voluntarily, without committing any rough or rude act, would seem to me a classroom very well disciplined indeed." - Maria Montessori
"The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity." - Maria Montessori
"Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good." - Maria Von Ebner-Eschenbach, or Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachová, Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach
"To the timid heart, to the child of unbelief and dread, That leaneth on his own weak staff, and trusteth the sight of his eyes, The evil he feared shall come, for the soil is ready for the seed." - Martin Tupper, fully Martin Farquhar Tupper
"A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world; vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast. Despise not thou small things, either for evil or for good; for a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth." - Martin Tupper, fully Martin Farquhar Tupper
"Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility." - Mary McCarthy
"What is there so fearful as the expectation of evil tidings delayed? ... Misery is a more welcome visitant when she comes in her darkest guise and wraps us in perpetual black, for then the heart no longer sickens with disappointed hope. " - Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." - Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
"I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world." - Max Born
"Whatever else you do or forbear, impose upon yourself the task of happiness; and now and then abandon yourself to the joy of laughter. And however much you condemn the evil in the world, remember that the world is not all evil; that somewhere children are at play, as you yourself in the old days; that women still find joy in the stalwart hearts of men; And that men, treading with restless feet their many paths, may yet find refuge from the storms of the world in the cheerful house of love." - Max Ehrmann
"When evil acts in the world it always manages to find instruments who believe that what they do is not evil but honorable." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
"We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it." - Madeleine L’Engle
"If a person has done an evil turn to some one, he must receive the penalty for it and welcome the evil rebounding upon himself; and if he has done a good turn to some one, he must also receive the reward for it and enjoy the good rebounding upon himself. What he does for another, he has also done for himself, although it may take time for him to realise that this is exactly so. The law of Karma might be said to be an expression of justice or a reflection of the unity of life, in the world of duality." - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
"It must be that evil communications corrupt good dispositions. " - Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL
"The chief beginning of evil is goodness in excess." - Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL
"Evil exists to glorify the good. Evil is negative good. It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good. What is evil to one at one time, becomes good at another time to somebody else." - Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
"Money is a good servant, but an evil master. " - Mexican Proverbs