In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men..
I couldn’t claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell, you have to be very careful.
What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? / What is a bad man but a good man’s job? / If you don’t understand this, you will get lost, / however intelligent you are.
If . . . you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.
Good and evil, as we term them, are not antagonistic; they are ever found hand in hand. Humanity has never achieved a single conquest without the aid of both. Indeed how can she? What adds to moral strength, but a grappling with temptation?
I’m on the thin side of evil and trying not to break through.
What makes some people more virtuous than others? Is it something they know from birth? Don’t they ever feel that zingy, thrilling urge to smash the world to bits? Isn’t it possible, maybe, that good people are just luckier people?
There are times when it would seem as if God fished with a line, and the devil with a net.
It is the modest nature of goodness to exert itself quietly, while a few characters of the opposite cast seem, by the rumor of their exploits, to fill the world; and by their noise to multiply their numbers.
As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light?
There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish; to bewail it, senseless.
Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering emperors with world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.
It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.
There are depths in man that go the length of lowest Hell, as there are heights that reach highest Heaven—for are not both Heaven and Hell made out of him, made by him, everlasting Miracle and Mystery as he is?
