Evil quotes
5.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside evil — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line."
"What a burden to think one is conceived in sin rather than in pleasure; that one is born into evil rather than into joy."
"Helped are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgetfulness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth. -----“The Gospel According to Shug"
"We've used derivatives for many, many years. I don't think derivatives are evil, per se, I think they are dangerous."
"Into the space of one little hour sins enough may be conjured up by evil tongues to blast the fame of a whole life of virtue."
"Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan's gratification."
"Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves."
"People’s good deeds we write in water. The evil deeds are etched in brass."
"Sometimes we are devils to ourselves When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency."
"But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need."
"God Almighty would in no way permit evil in His works were He not so omnipotent and good that even out of evil He could work good."
"The potentiality of perfection outweighs actual contradictions... Existence in itself is here to prove that it cannot be an evil."
"One of the most evil dispositions possible is that which satirizes and turns everything to ridicule. God abhors this vice, and has sometimes punished it in a marked manner"
"The other three incoming calls were from his building superintendent, his pharmacy and a telephone survey company." "Bastards. They always call during dinner." Liv laughed as I slid the sliced steak onto a platter and topped it with sautéed vegetables. "Forget crime lords and corrupt politicians - telemarketers are the root of all evil." "Now you're getting it."
"A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed. Things could not go on in this manner."
"Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of beat."
"I once heard a spiritual man say that he was not so much astonished at the things done by a soul in mortal sin as at the things not done by it. May God, in his mercy, deliver us from such great evil, for there is nothing in the whole of our lives that so thoroughly deserves to be called evil as this, since it brings endless and eternal evils in its train."
"Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent."
"In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience is to be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints, that, if properly applied might remove the cause."
"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."
