Great Throughts Treasury

"God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers." - William Penn

"To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations." - William Penn

"Money is the cause of good things to a good man, of evil things to a bad man." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"The recompense of good and evil follows as the shadow follows the figure." - Tai-shang Kan-Ying Pien (Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution) NULL

"For most or even all forms of evil serve the Universe - much as the poisonous snake has it use - though in most cases their function is unknown. Vice itself has many useful sides: it brings about much that is beautiful, in artistic creations for example, and it stirs us to thoughtful living, not allowing us to drowse in security." - Plotinus NULL

"Even when there is no law, there is conscience... An evil conscience is often quiet, but never secure." - Publius Syrus

"The evil that lies concealed is always the most serious." - Publius Syrus

"What greater evil could you wish a miser, than long life?" - Publius Syrus

"In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself. Another is but one witness against thee; thou art a thousand. Another thou mayst avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment." - Francis Quarles

"In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment." - Francis Quarles

"The rule of law is essentially a negative value. The law inevitably creates a great danger of arbitrary power - the rule of law is designed to minimize the danger created by the law itself. Similarly, the law may be unstable, obscure, retrospective, etc., and thus infringe people’s freedom and dignity. The rule of law is designed to prevent his danger as well. Thus the rule of law is a negative virtue in two senses: conformity to it does not cause good except through avoiding evil and the evil which is avoided is evil which could only have been caused by the law itself." - Joseph Raz

"If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil increase; if men do to him as he has done, it will be true justice." -

"If self-knowledge be a path to virtue, virtue is a much better one to self-knowledge. The more pure the soul becomes, it will, like certain precious stones that are sensible to the contact if poison, shrink from the fetid vapors of evil impressions." -

"It is a well-known psychological fact that the conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; and that their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe." -

"It is in the law of our humanity that man must know good through evil. No great principle ever triumphed but through much evil. No man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mistakes." -

"What indulgence does the world extend to those evil-speakers who, under the mask of friendship, stab indiscriminately with the keen, though rusty blade of slander!" - Madame Roland, Jeanne Manon Philon, born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon

"Do to others as you would have them do unto you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect indeed, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little evil as possible to others." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Luxury, which cannot be prevented among men who are tenacious of their own convenience and of the respect paid them by others, soon completes the evil society had begun, and, under the pretense of giving bread to the poor, whom it should never have made such, impoverishes all the rest, and sooner or later depopulates the State." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"The ideally virtuous man, if we had got rid of asceticism, would be the man who permits the enjoyment of all good things whenever there is no evil consequence to outweigh the enjoyment." -

"Jung said the truth of the matter is that the shadow is ninety percent gold. Whatever has been repressed holds a tremendous amount of energy, with a great positive potential. So the shadow, no matter how troublesome it may be, is not intrinsically evil. The ego, in its refusal of insight and its refusal to accept the entire personality, contributes much more to evil than the shadow." - John A. Sanford, aka Jack

"To try to be good, and disregard one's darkness, is to fall victim to the evil in ourselves whose existence we have denied." - John A. Sanford, aka Jack

"There is no evil in the world without a remedy." - Jacopo Sannazarro

"Reverence for Life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting, and enhancing life and that to destroy, to harm, or to hinder life is evil. Affirmation of the world - that is affirmation of the will to live, which appears in phenomenal forms all round me - is only possible for me in that I give myself out for other life." - Albert Schweitzer

"Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace." -

"Knowledge alone does not stop men from evil. The poor and the ignorant are not the greatest sinners. Man's mind may unfold, his intellect grow more keen, his understanding more profound, yet side by side with this may be a moral degeneration such as existed in pagan Greece and Rome." - William A. Scully, fully Bishop William Aloysius Scully

"If thou wishest to get rid of thy evil propensities, thou must keep far from evil companions." -

"It is an extreme evil to depart from the company of the living before you die." -

"Life is neither a good nor an evil; it is simply the place where good and evil exist." -

"No evil is without its compensation." -

"No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline." -

"Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes." -

"There is no evil without its compensation." -

"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." -

"Self-control is promoted by humility. Pride is a fruitful source of uneasiness. It keeps the mind in disquiet. Humility is the antidote to this evil." - Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

"There is evil in the world, but it can be overcome through repentance and aspiration, and therein lies the true meaning and adventure in life." - Abba Hillel Silver

"Strong passions are the life of manly virtues. But they need not necessarily be evil because they are passions, and because they are strong. They may be likened to blood horses, that need training and the curb only, to enable those whom they carry to achieve the most glorious triumphs." - William Gilmore Simms

"Man has evil as well as good qualities peculiar to himself. Drunkenness places him as much below the level of the brutes as reason elevates him above them." - Sir G. Sinclair

"Man creates the evil he endures." - Robert Southey

"Never let man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul! Any other issue is doubtful; the evil effect on himself is certain." - Robert Southey

"A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil." -

"The ambitious man desires nothing like glory, and on the other hand dreads nothing like shame. To the envious person, again, nothing is more pleasant than the misfortune of another, and nothing more disagreeable than the prosperity of another. And so each person according to his affect judges a thing to be good or evil, useful or useless." -

"We do not desire a thing because we adjudge it to be good, but, on the contrary, we call it good because we desire it, and consequently everything to which we are averse we call evil. Each person, therefore, according to his affect judges or estimates what is good and what is evil, what is better and what is worse, and what is the best and what is the worst. Thus the covetous man thinks plenty of money to be the best thing and poverty the worst." -

"I know no evil so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common." - Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

"If there is an evil in this world, it is sorrow and heaviness of heart. The loss of goods, of healthy, of coronets and mitres, is only evil as they occasion sorrow; take that out, the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man." - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

"He who is in evil, is also in the punishment of evil." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"The potentiality of perfection outweighs actual contradictions... Existence in itself is here to prove that it cannot be an evil." -

"The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy. But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then existence appears to us a monstrous evil., impetuously rushing towards an unending aimlessness." -

"The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why there is imperfection... But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?" -

"Truth cannot afford to be tolerant where it faces positive evil." -

"No man becomes fully evil at once; but suggestion bringeth on indulgence; indulgence, delight; delight, consent; consent, endeavor; endeavor, practice; practice, custom; custom, excuse; excuse, defense; defense, obstinacy; obstinacy, boasting; boasting, a seared conscience and a reprobate mind." - Thomas De Witt Talmage