Quotes about evil

The problem of evil is perhaps the most fundamental of all human problems.

True community is always in a state of almost constant terror at the problem of human evil.

Compartmentalization is not the root of all evil; it is, however, the principal psychological mechanism of evil. Deprive an evil man of his capacity to compartmentalize, and he will be like a general without an army. Or better yet, he will undergo a conversion to goodness — a conversion to integrity.

Evil can be thought of as the exercise of political power — that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion in order to avoid extending oneself for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth.

Evil is that force ... residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.

My favorite definition of evil is that it is militant ignorance.

The spirit of evil is one of unreality, but it itself is real. To think otherwise is to be misled.

If we attempt te deal with (human) evil by destroying it, we will also end up destroying ourselves, spiritually if not physcially. And we are likely to take some innocent people with us as well.

It has often seemed to me that those who are most dedicated to the light are the ones most subject to assault by the forces of darkness. Evil always hates the light. And yet these attacks are not necessarily destructive. In the long run they may serve the purposes of grace. For through them the servants of the light may become more firmly committed to their cause, their dedication tested and refined.

Lying is both a cause and a manifestation of evil.

It is not the weak or the stupid who are most likely to be the targets of evil, but the strong and the good. Evil seeks to destroy the life force wherever it is most manifest.

Good and evil are constructs lesser beings build to create divisions in places where rigor and intelligence are insufficient. It is a sloppy shorthand, and prone to error.

He was a ferocious man. He had been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had not been helped any by the moulding he had received at the hands of society. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of its handiwork. He was a beast.