"But even in a telephone booth evil can seep out of the receiver and we must cover it with a mattress, and then tear it from its roots and bury it, bury it."
Evil quotes
Evil
5.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Evil
Browse quotes that often appear alongside evil — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Evil quotes (page 67 of 265)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering-from positive evil."
"The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind."
"There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil."
"The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise isgone! it isgone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness."
"Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues."
"It is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men."
"The Law is not in fault, but our evil and wicked nature; even as a heap of lime is still and quiet until water is poured on it, but then it begins to smoke and burn, not from the fault of the water, but from the nature of the lime, which will not endure it."
"Human law cannot punish or forbid all evil, since while doing away with evils it would do away with many good things, which would hinder the advance of the common good."
"I too have sworn heedlessly and all the time, I have had this most repulsive and death-dealing habit. I'm telling your graces; from the moment I began to serve God , and saw what evil there is in forswearing oneself, I grew very afraid indeed, and out of fear I applied the brakes to this old, old, habit."
"Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved!"
"I began to feel lighthearted. Don't ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe."
"There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come."
"There must be a subject to know the good and evil. Thatsubject is the ego."
"It's not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here."
"God never changes; Patient endurance Attains to all things; Who God possesses In nothing is wanting; Alone God suffices."
"Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses."
"Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil."
"Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them."
"Rumor goes forth at once, Rumor than whom No other speedier evil thing exists; She thrives by rapid movement, and acquires Strength as she goes; small at the first from fear, She presently uplifts herself aloft, And stalks upon the ground and hides her head Among the clouds."