Necessary Evil Quotes

The law is an expression of God 's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously. "Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant . ~ Anthony De Mello

Of course, many acts which are sins against God are also injuries to our fellow-citizens, and must on that account, but only on that account, be made crimes. But of all the sins in the world, I should have thought homosexuality was the one that least concerns the State. We hear too much of the State. Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place. ~ C.S. Lewis

The Founders never intended for Americans to trust their government. Our entire Constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible. ~ Rand Paul

The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives. ~ James Bovard

As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil. ~ Robert Southey

The daisies and buttercups nodded in the breeze, like skinny-necked old ladies listening to dance music.

What if necessary evil had an opposite? This is what it would be. This unnecessary good.

For the first time in days, Mo smiled. ~ Tricia Springstubb

The golden watch has become the other end of golden handcuffs. We now look at steady jobs as less of a goal and more of a necessary evil. They aren't fun; they simply fund our lives. ~ Jon Acuff

Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence ... politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good. ~ Bernard Crick

A baseball manager is a necessary evil. ~ Sparky Anderson

Government is a necessary evil ~ Thomas Paine

When all else fails, you can always damn yourself with a necessary evil, for the greater good. ~ Simon R. Green

Conventional wisdom, fooled by our misleading "physical intuition", is that the real world is continuous, and that discrete models are necessary evils for approximating the "real" world, due to the innate discreteness of the digital computer. ~ Doron Zeilberger

Phineas didn't really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered authority the necessary evil against which happiness was achieved by reaction, the backboard which returned all the insults he threw at it. ~ John Knowles

politics?" "A necessary evil that on rare occasions works without corruption, abuse, and waste. ~ J.D. Robb

Marriage is a necessary evil ~ Amit Abraham

Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Love is a necessary evil that traps you in illusory gossamer ~ Samreen Ahsan

Your father is why you don't allow guns in the house?" "I just don't like them. It seems to me that no matter what they always lead to bad things. My opinion is that produced for their specific purpose, they are inherently bad." We stared at each other for a moment, then she continued, "I know that they are a necessary evil in your line of work, but I don't allow necessary evils in my home. ~ Craig Johnson

I think the paparazzi is a necessary evil ... and if ya don't like it, and ya don't want to do this, go to Iowa and do some community theatre. It's all about self-promotion, and it's not always the fun part of it. ~ Gail O'Grady

A lot of auditions are not fun; they're just a necessary evil, and, if you're lucky, you have a few moments that are fun. ~ Kristen Connolly

Hey." Her host grabbed her by the back of the jacket and hauled her upright. "I'm not fishing you out again if you fall overboard."
Their eyes met. He wasn't kidding. "Not exactly a people person, are you?" she said.
He grimaced and released her. Tally turned back to the rail, oddly disconcerted by his touch, even through the jacket. She didn't lean as far out this time, but she strained to see in the growing darkness.
Tally suspected Arnaud's boat was probably Trevor Church's boat, and if that was the case, her father was not only going to be absolutely livid about the loss of property, he was also going to blow his stack if she didn't at least make an attempt to find Bouchard. Damn it.
"I'll pay you to help me find him," Tally said briskly, turning to face him.
An eyebrow rose. "Yeah? How much?"
"A thousand dollars." He didn't so much as blink at the offer. "Are you for real? Okay, two thousand."
"Only two? He couldn't've been very important to you."
She considered Bouchard a slimy turd, a necessary evil. On the other hand, the pirate wasn't going to risk his life and boat if he knew she felt that way. "Five? Ten? Twenty thousand? How much will it take?"
"How much you got on you?"
She held her arms out. "Not a whole hell of a lot. But I have traveler's checks back at-I'll buy your boat from you." She narrowed her eyes when he didn't answer. This was nuts. She was standing out here in the middle of a typhoon negotiating with ~ Cherry Adair

Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile. ~ Christy Mathewson

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. ~ Baltasar Gracian

Mycroft Holmes: ... a necessary evil, not a dragon for you to slay.
Sherlock Holmes: A dragon slayer? Is that what you think of me?
Mycroft: No ... It's what you think of yourself.
Mrs. Holmes/Mum: Are you two smoking?
Mycroft: No-
Sherlock: It was Mycroft!
(They hide their lighted cigarettes behind their backs.) -Sherlock, "His Last Vow", season/series 3 ~ Steven Moffat

The State is said by some to be a necessary evil; it must be made unnecessary. ~ Benjamin Tucker

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man. ~ Franz Kafka

I hate dealing with the press. But I think it is a necessary evil. ~ Amy Carter

The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil. ~ F.H. Bradley

There are necessary evils. Money is an important thing in terms of representing freedom in our world. And now I have a daughter to think about. It's really the first time I've thought about the future and what it could be. ~ Johnny Depp

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. ~ Thomas Paine

These men did not give the impression that they considered the solitude to be a necessary evil of their land. They intimate with it and loved it. ~ Ernst Junger

Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed. ~ Wendell Phillips

For me, Spotify is not even a necessary evil. It helps me do what I want to do. ~ Ed Sheeran

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good. ~ Margaret Mead

The most reckless volume on the subject, the Malleus Maleficarum, or Witch Hammer, summoned a shelf of classical authorities to prove its point: "When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil." As is often the case with questions of women and power, elucidations here verged on the paranormal. Weak as she was to devilish temptations, a woman could emerge dangerously, insatiably commanding. According to the indispensable Malleus, even in the absence of occult power, women constituted "a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment." The ~ Stacy Schiff

Governments are a necessary evil. Just because something is necessary doesn't mean you should pretend that it is a good thing. Governments cannot do good, it is against their nature; it is beyond their ability; so curb them and curb the evil that they do. ~ Chris Northern

Rock music is, is a necessary evil, like beating my children with penny loafers ~ Thom Yorke

Dialogue is a necessary evil. ~ Fred Zinnemann

Tonio Treschi was that half man, that less than man that arouses the contempt of every whole man who looks upon it. Tonio Treschi was that thing which women cannot leave alone and men find infinitely disturbing, frightening, pathetic, the butt of jokes and endless bullying, the necessary evil of the church choirs and the opera stage which is, outside that artifice and grace and soaring music, very simply monstrous. ~ Anne Rice

Only I knew the truth - I didn't enjoy killing. It was nothing more than a necessary evil in my world.

My sin was being very good at it. ~ Lisa Kessler

Any communitys arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Woman -a foe of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil. ~ Saint John Chrysostom

No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil. ~ Peter Drucker

No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty; they are still chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred, by the accident of birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing. Is it a necessary evil? They are told so by, those who do not feel it
by those who have gained the prizes in the lottery of life. But it was also said that slavery, that despotism, that all the privileges of oligarchy, were necessary. ~ John Stuart Mill

Failure isn't a necessary evil. In fact, it isn't evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new. ~ Ed Catmull

People are accustomed to thinking of accounting as dry and boring, a necessary evil used primarily to prepare financial reports and survive audits, but that is because accounting is something that has become taken for granted. ~ Eric Ries

Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody's got to pay for them so they're a necessary evil. ~ Michael Bloomberg

Mornings after sucked. Walks of shame were a necessary evil, but that didn't mean I enjoyed shimmying back into the same trollop togs twice. I picked glitter out of my hair, then straightened my sequined top. I was officially decommissioning it. Multiple washings never quite managed to remove the lingering aura of bad decisions I made while wearing party clothes. My philosophy? Cross my fingers and hope for the most bang for the bucks spent later on new outfits. ~ Deborah Wilde

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Imagine that you're an intelligent extraterrestrial, concerned only with verifiable truths. You discover a species that has divided itself into thousands - no, by now millions - of tribal groups holding an incredible variety of beliefs about the origin of the universe and the way to behave in it. Although many of them have ideas in common, even when there's 99% overlap, the remaining one percent's enough to set them killing and torturing each other, over trivial points of doctrine, utterly meaningless to outsiders. How to account for such irrational behavior? ( ... ) religion was the by-product of fear - a reaction to a mysterious and often hostile universe. For much of human prehistory, it may have been a necessary evil - but why was it so much more evil than necessary - and why did it survive when it was no longer necessary? ~ Arthur C. Clarke

I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development. I think that religion may be some random by-product of mammalian reproduction. If that's true, would non-mammalian aliens have a religion? ~ Arthur C. Clarke

In Paradise, as always: that which causes the sin and that which recognizes it for what it is are one. The clear conscience is Evil, which is so entirely victorious that it does not any longer consider the leap from left to right necessary. ~ Franz Kafka

A middleman's business is to make himself a necessary evil. ~ William Gibson

Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity? Arthur C. Clarke, author ~ George Washington

While in some quarters it is felt that the critic is just a necessary evil, most serious-minded, decent, talented theater people agree that the critic is an unnecessary evil. ~ Jean Kerr

I had a therapist once tell me to "sit with my shit," and I believe that to be a necessary evil of being constantly disappointed. ~ Chelsea Handler

The Thai people are pathologically shy. Combine that with a reluctance to lose face by giving a wrong answer, and it makes for a painfully long [ESL] class. Usually I ask the students to work on exercises in small groups, and then I move around and check their progress. But for days like today, when I'm grading on participation, speaking up in public is a necessary evil. "Jao," I say to a man in my class. "You own a pet store, and you want to convince Jaidee to buy a pet." I turn to a second man. "Jaidee, you do not want to buy that pet. Let's hear your conversation."
They stand up, clutching their papers. "This dog is reccommended," Jao begins.
"I have one already," Jaidee replies.
"Good job!" I encourage. "Jao, give him a reason why he should buy your dog."
"This dog is alive," Jao adds.
Jaidee shrugs. "Not everyone wants a pet that is alive."
Well, not all days are successes ... ~ Jodi Picoult

Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil. ~ Richard Whately

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil ... ~ Howard Zinn

For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most. ~ Annie Besant

Marriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil. ~ Menander

Doubtless there are times when controversy becomes a necessary evil. But let us remember that it is an evil. ~ Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

Sadly, in our technological, impersonal, and avaricious consumer society, people merely hold on to jobs. They put in their time, leave at the five o'clock bell, pick up their pay checks, and leave the whole business behind them. Work, for so many, becomes a necessary evil. They go at it grudgingly, at best resignedly. It is hard to fault them; the stressful conditions and uncertainty under which so many workers labor force them into an adversarial relationship with their occupations and employers. ~ Robert Dykstra

When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left? ~ Matthew Scully

Buffy's high school was built on top of a vortex of evil, the Hellmouth. And whose wasn't? ~ Sarah Vowell

But we who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments. We have nothing else to think of. Suffering ― curious as it may sound to you ― is the means by which we exist, because it is the only means by which we become conscious of existing; and the remembrance of suffering in the past is necessary to us as the warrant, the evidence, of our continued identity. ~ Oscar Wilde

Evil may seem powerful but, it loses in the end. ~ Jyoti Patel

When EVIL men make bad laws, righteous men disobey them."
Pastor Butch Paugh ~ Tarrin P. Lupo

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society. This native determination guides his labor and his spending. He wants an equipment of means and tools proper to his talent. And to save on this point were to neutralize the special strength and helpfulness of each mind. Do your work, respecting the excellence of the work, and not its acceptableness. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

All the souls to explore! - It's not so necessary to love, really, as it is to settle something deep with all of those who really matter. Love and hate are the same things, differently sifted through personal ... pride, or what have you ... personal pride or even just personal-ness. ~ Jack Kerouac

I understand the frustration of the community, i want citizens to know exactly how it happened, and if necessary, I will ensure that we hold the right people accountable. ~ Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

I was merely making more perceptible that binary rhythm which love adopts in all those who have too little confidence in themselves to believe that a woman can ever fall in love with them, and also that they themselves can genuinely fall in love with her. They know themselves well enough to have observed that in the presence of the most divergent types of woman they felt the same hopes, the same agonies, invented the same romances, uttered the same words, and to have realised therefore that their feelings, their actions, bear no close and necessary relation to the woman they love, but pass to one side of her, splash her, encircle her, like the incoming tide breaking against the rocks, and their sense of their own instability increases still further their misgivings that this woman, by whom they so long to be loved, does not love them. ~ Marcel Proust

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

That in man which cannot be domesticated is not his evil but his goodness. ~ Antonio Porchia

His light tone, in which, had her nerves been steadier, she would have recognized the mere effort to bridge over an awkward moment, jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that any one should think it necessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word-play and evasion. ~ Edith Wharton

mad maddie: i am SOOOO pissed. SnowAngel: oh no. why? mad maddie: one word. well, two. JANA WHITAKER. SnowAngel: the queen bee of our entire class? *gasps* what'd she do this time? mad maddie: i hate her. she's evil. SnowAngel: i KNOW that. TELL ME WHAT SHE DID!!!! mad maddie: we had a substitute for last period study hall and he insisted on taking roll, cuz god forbid one of us had snuck off to do something productive. when he got to me he called out, "madeleine kinnick?" and jana turns around, all batting eyes and innocent, and goes, "um, isn't your name madigan?" SnowAngel: yr name IS madigan. mad maddie: which jana totally knows! SnowAngel: so what's the problem? mad maddie: r u serious?!! mad maddie: it was the way she said it, like she was honestly confused. like, "oh my goodness, i THINK i know u, don't i?" WHEN WE'VE GONE TO SCHOOL TOGETHER SINCE 7th GRADE!!! ~ Lauren Myracle

Exploitation, mutilation, mutations, confirmation to the evils of the world. ~ Stevie Wonder

fiction is necessary to life - not only as books but as dreams, dreams that frame the world and give it meaning. ~ Siri Hustvedt

The telling of stories, like singing and praying, would seem to be an almost ceremonial act, an ancient and necessary mode of speech that tends the earthly rootedness of human language. For narrated events always happen somewhere. And for an oral culture, that location is never merely incidental to those occurrences. The events belong, as it were, to the place, and to tell the story of those events is to let the place itself speak through the telling. ~ David Abram

If sleep wasn't necessary, I would have used those 8 hours just to gaze at you. ~ Amit Kalantri

Specialization is the great evil of civilization. ~ Wendell Berry

The purpose is to get across; change horses mid-stream if necessary. ~ Haresh Sippy

For interests that are vital to the U.S. - that is, essential for our survival and wellbeing - the U.S. should be prepared to use military force - including unilaterally, if necessary. ~ Graham T. Allison

When your body is clear there is control. When your body is clear you can choose whom to let in. There is love everywhere.
Please cradle my rabbit heart. Please navigate yourself around me well. I know too much. I can recognize darkness because he is my brother, my maker. I can drink lightness because it is the only way to survive. I can shut off my heart but that leads to evil, so I express her and revel in the nuance of blood currents, and the sacred demons. I fear and quake with my eyes darting fight or flight love or die. The lightning comes from below this time and rips out of my throat for the world to see. They all see my rabbit and I have trained her to hunt. In her perfect glory she is shy and extroverted, chaste and perverted, my sweet near-death more alive than ever. Take her. Take me while I am ripe and open, rub berries on my lips and bear fat in my hair. Tattoo me with a needle and impale me with your warmth. Heal me, fuck me, and work my heart till she beats strong and unafraid. Haunches bared, teeth sharpened, wide-eyed and aware. Hurry. I want to feel safe. ~ Tanya Tagaq

I'm evil, know it, and enjoy it. ~ Robert Thier

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Death? Why all this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! Death is the essential condition to life, not an evil. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

For those who reflect on themselves, everything they encounter is medicine. For those who attack others, every thought is a weapon. One is the way to initiate all good, one is the way to deepen all evil. They are as far apart as sky and earth. ~ Zicheng Hong

Know the difference between your necessary and discretionary expenses. ~ Alexa Von Tobel

It is impossible to describe what is necessary, to those who do not know what horror means. You must make a friend of horror. ~ Col. Walter E. Kurtz

There are no black and white, good or bad characters in 'Game Of Thrones,' but Joffrey was an exception. Just pure evil. ~ Sophie Turner

There is no evil that the father's love cannot pardon and cover, there is no sin that is a match for his grace. ~ Timothy Keller

In being realistic we do not always have to be pessimistic. Christ never blinked his eyes at bad things. But he never became so obsessed with human evil that he lost faith in man. ~ Ralph Washington Sockman

In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

My mother is not evil, Faith reminded herself. She is just a perfectly sensible snake, protecting her eggs and making her way in the world as best she can. ~ Frances Hardinge

There is, in fact, no recognized principle by which the propriety or impropriety of government interference is customarily tested. People decide according to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government to undertake the business, while others prefer to bear almost any amount of social evil rather than add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental control. And men range themselves on one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general direction of their sentiments, or according to the degree of interest which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the government should do, or according to the belief they entertain that the government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere, as to what things are fit to be done by a government. And ~ John Stuart Mill

There's a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and is much less prevalent. ~ Eric Blehm

We cannot fight the devil because fight is his invention. ~ Mihail Militaru

Free vacation sponsored by the forces of evil. Nice.
- Blake ~ Ian Isaro

We send you to awful places and ask you to do things, terrible, painful, necessary things, and then we ask you not to think about it, remember it, or internalize any of it. We ask the impossible. ~ Teresa J. Reasor