Quotes about evil

322 quotes · 165 authors

Quotes

  1. Neither man nor angel can discern

    Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks

    Invisible

  2. So farewel Hope, and with Hope farewel Fear,

    Farewel Remorse: all Good to me is lost;

    Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least

    Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold

    By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne;

    As Man ere long, and this new World shall know.

  3. Satan, now first inflam’d with rage, came down,

    The Tempter ere th’ Accuser of man-kind,

    To wreck on innocent frail man his loss

    Of that first Battel, and his flight to Hell:

    Yet not rejoycing in his speed, though bold,

    Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,

    Begins his dire attempt, which nigh the birth

    Now rowling, boiles in his tumultuous brest,

    And like a devillish Engine back recoiles

    Upon himself; horror and doubt distract

    His troubl’d thoughts, and from the bottom stirr

    The Hell within him, for within him Hell

    He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell

    One step no more then from himself can fly

    By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair

    That slumberd, wakes the bitter memorie

    Of what he was, what is, and what must be

    Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

  4. And out of good still to find means of evil.

  5. The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,

    Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived

    The mother of mankind.

  6. High on a throne of royal state, which far

    Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

    Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

    Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,

    Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

    To that bad eminence; and from despair

    Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires

    Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

    Vain war with heav'n.

  7. Him the Almighty Power

    Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky

    With hideous ruin and combustion down

    To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

    In adamantine chains and penal fire,

    Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

  8. In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

  9. Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

    p. 332

  10. The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.

  11. Of what use to destroy the children of evil? It is evil itself we must destroy at the roots.

  12. [M]y father's rejection of all that is called religious belief, was not, as many might suppose, primarily a matter of logic and evidence: the grounds of it were moral, still more than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness.

    p. 39