This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Pray only for the suppression of evil, and never for one’s material well-being, for a separating veil arises if one admit the material into the spiritual." - Baal Shem Tov, given name Yisroel ben Eliezer
"They that know no evil will suspect none." - Ben Jonson
"Apologies only account for the evil which they cannot alter." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"Iniquity is the greatest evil." - Benjamin Whichcote
"Nothing gives such force in getting rid of evil as this belief that the good is the only reality." - Bernard Bosanquet
"Life is so mysterious. People are in misery, and they don’t know how to get out, get help or free themselves. Life is total freedom, but we’re trapped in our own civilization, culture, religion, teachings. We’re equipped with fear, ignorance, unhappiness. Desire is the big evil, the big temptation. Many people carry on in life without knowing this. We do so much for our bodies but not for our souls. Pay attention to yourself, monitor your thinking and capture the villains within. Know what it is in you that would make people suffer more, make people suffer less. Know this and you know how to use your thinking and abilities to bring peace. Certain people have certain duties, a talent. The meaning of life is to see this mission, fulfill it and make the maximum use of your life and your benefit and mankind’s." - Bernie S. Siegel
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
"Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite variety; good is almost unique. But some kinds of evil are almost as difficult to discover as that which we call good; and often particular evil of this class passes for good. It needs even a certain greatness of soul to attain to this, as to that which is good." - Blaise Pascal
"We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare." - Blaise Pascal
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings... Money breeds money, money rules the world." - Carl Sandburg
"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of all blessings." - Carl Sandburg
"We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them." - Cato the Elder, Marcus Porius Cato, aka Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient) NULL
"Men by doing nothing learn to do evil." - Cato the Elder, Marcus Porius Cato, aka Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient) NULL
"We are all capable of evil thoughts, but only very rarely of evil deeds: we can all do good deeds, but very few of us can think good thoughts." - Cesare Pavese
"Idleness is the root of all evil." - Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
"Idleness is the grand Pacific Ocean of life, and in that stagnant abyss, the most salutary things produce no good, the most noxious no evil." - Charles Caleb Colton
"From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb, which says, "That the devil tempts all other men, but the idle men tempt the devil."" - Charles Caleb Colton
"That evil is half-cured whose cause we know." - Charles Churchill
"Idleness is the key of beggary, and the root of all evil." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love of goodness or joy worth having." - C. S. Lewis, fully Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, called "Jack" by his family
"He whose mind is really set on virtue will do no evil." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder." - Coretta Scott King
"We are surrounded by motives to piety and devotion, if we would but mind them... When we see good men rewarded, it confirms our hope; and when evil men are punished, it excites our fear." - Daniel Wilson
"Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men." - Demosthenes NULL
"Our repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done as fear of what may happen to us because of it." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Truth does not do so much good in the world as the appearance of it does evil." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Never expect to find perfection in men, in my commerce with my contemporaries I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They who raise suspicions on the good, on account of the behavior of ill men, are of the party of the latter." - Edmund Burke
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"The destruction of the personality is the great evil of the time." - Ellen Key, fully Ellen Karolina Sofia Key
"Fortune is an evil chain to the body, and vice to the soul." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an evil government." - Eric Hoffer
"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hard thing to hide is something that is not there." - Eric Hoffer
"Good judgment in our dealings with others consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions but in being able to waken the decency dormant in every person." - Eric Hoffer
"In the alchemy of man’s soul almost all noble attributes - courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on - can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless." - Eric Hoffer
"A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another's fortune." - Francis Bacon
"It is only man who is good, and he is good only because he can also be evil. Good and evil are inseparable, and their inseparability is rooted in the fact that the concept becomes an object to itself, and as object it eo ipso acquires the character of difference. The evil will wills something opposed to the university of the will, while the good will acts in accordance with its true concept." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"This is the seal of the absolute and sublime destiny of man - that he knows what is good and what is evil; that his destiny is his very ability to will either good or evil." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"If a man cannot look evil in the face without illusion, he will never know what it really is, or combat it effectually." - George Bernard Shaw
"Lack of money is the root of all evil." - George Bernard Shaw
"Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your reputation. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust. Undertake not what you cannot perform, be be careful to keep your promise. There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth, and pursue it steadily. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy nation." - George Washington
"It is easier… to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes." - George Washington
"One does evil enough who does nothing good." - German Proverbs
"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil." - Hannah Arendt
"Life is a short day; but it is a working-day. Activity may lead to evil; but inactivity cannot be led to good." - Hannah More
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau