Why Is There Evil Quotes

If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good? ~ Saint Augustine

When a person denies his conscience for too long, it can become seared. That person becomes susceptible to receiving and accepting all sorts of harmful and evil things. This is true for both believers and unbelievers. A seared conscience will open a person up to demonic spirits and activities. ~ Henry Hon

There are more worlds than one, and in many ways they are unlike each other. But joy and sorrow, or, in other words, good and evil,are not absent in their degree from any of the worlds, for wherever there is life there is action, and action is but the expression of one or other of these qualities. ~ James Stephens

There is indeed good and there is indeed evil, and both walk the earth. But good has little to do with the forms of religion, and evil has as little to do with so much behavior condemned by religion. Both good and evil vie for the passions of the heart. For love! ~ Ted Dekker

Had there been any existent vital and energetic institution left in Society after the Reformation for the use of small property in coordinated form-that is, in combination, so that the average man's holding could be put to useful purpose in company with the holdings of a great number of other men of his own sort, the new evils would not have arisen. ~ Hilaire Belloc

It is impossible to say why we love something or someone. We can come up with reasons if we have to, but the important part happens in the dark, beyond our control. We just know when it is there. And when it goes away. ~ John Ajvide Lindqvist

Isn't this the weekend of Xander Eckhart's party?"

"Yes." Jordan held her breath in a silent plea. Don't ask if I'm bringing anyone. Don't ask if I'm bringing anyone.

"So are you bringing anyone?" Melinda asked.

Foiled.

Having realized there was a distinct possibility the subject would come up, Jordan had spent some time running through potential answers to this very question. She had decided that being casual was the best approach. "Oh, there's this guy I met a few days ago, and I was thinking about asking him." She shrugged. "Or maybe I'll just go by myself, who knows."

Melinda put down her forkful of gnocchi, zoning in on this like a heat-seeking missile to its target. "What guy you met a few days ago? And why is this the first we're hearing of him?"

"Because I just met him a few days ago."

Corinne rubbed her hands together, eager for the details. "So? Tell us. How'd you meet him?"

"What does he do?" Melinda asked.

"Nice, Melinda. You're so shallow." Corinne turned back to Jordan. "Is he hot?"

Of course, Jordan had known there would be questions. The three of them had been friends since college and still saw each other regularly despite busy schedules, and this was what they did. Before Corinne had gotten married, they talked about her now-husband, Charles. The same was true of Melinda and her soon-to-be-fiancé, Pete. So Jordan knew that she, in turn, was expected ~ Julie James

Why is it that a large majority of Hindus do not inter-dine and do not inter-marry? Why is it that your cause is not popular? There can be only one answer to this question, and it is that inter-dining and inter-marriage are repugnant to the beliefs and dogmas which the Hindus regard as sacred. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

(a) Are the skies you sleep under likely to open up for weeks on end?
(b) Is the ground you walk on likely to tremble and split?
(c) Is there a chance (and please check the box, no matter how small that chance seems) that the ominous mountain casting a midday shadow over your home might one day erupt with no rhyme or reason?

Because if the answer is yes to one or all of these questions, then the life you lead is a midnight thing, always a hair's breadth from the witching hour; it is volatile, it is threadbare; it is carefree in the true sense of that term; it is light, losable like a key or a hair clip. And it is lethargy: why not sit all morning, all day, all year, under the same cypress tree drawing the figure eight in the dust? More than that, it is disaster, it is chaos: why not overthrow a government on a whim, why not blind the man you hate, why not go mad, go gibbering through the town like a loon, waving your hands, tearing your hair? There's nothing to stop you---or rather anything could stop you, any hour, any minute. That feeling. That's the real difference in a life. ~ Zadie Smith

…the expression "beyond good and evil" is all too easily (mis)understood. When we say of someone that he is acting as if he were "beyond good and evil," we usually mean that, to put it plainly, he doesn't give a damn about the good. The expression "beyond good and evil," which has become a kind of ritornello, is typically misused - that is to say, it is used to refer to what would be more correctly referred to as "beyond good." In other words, it is employed to describe a space where, although the good is no longer taken into consideration, the evil and fascination with evil are still very much at work. In this context (and if we follow Lacan's thinking to its logical conclusion), even the scandalous Marquis de Sade got no further than merely transgressing the good. In de Sade's literature, the victims not only remain beautiful throughout the horror to which they are subjected, but even gain in beauty during this process: right up to the end, a sublime beauty "covers" the bodies of the victims, even in their naked exposure. Lacan's point is that there are walls and defences that humanity has erected as shields against the central field of das Ding (connoted as evil): the first protective barrier is the good; the second is the beautiful or sublime. This is where the intimate link between sublime beauty and evil (or danger) originally springs from. Nietzsche himself develops the idea that, by transgressing (or being indifferent to) the good, we enter the domain of the sublime, ~ Alenka Zupančič

Diana gave her a measured look and ducked down behind the counter. She came up a moment later with a sword about the length of Clary's forearm. "What do you think of this?"

Clary stared at the weapon. It was undoubtedly beautiful. The cross-guard, grip and pommel were gold chased with obsidian, the blade a silver so dark it was nearly black.

"It's a shortsword. You might want to look at the other side," said Diana, and she flipped the sword over. On the opposite side of the blade, down the center ridge, ran a pattern of black stars.

"Oh." Clary's heart thumped painfully; she took a step away and nearly bumped into Jace, who had come up behind her, frowning. "That's a Morgenstern sword."

"Yes, it is." The sword-seller's eyes were shrewd. "Long ago the Morgensterns commissioned two blades from Wayland the Smith-a matched set. You have doubtless seen the the larger sword already, for Valentine Morgenstern carried it, and now his son carries it after him."

"You know who we are," Jace said. It wasn't a question. "Who Clary is."

"The Shadowhunter world is small," said Diana, and she looked from one of them to the other. "I'm on the Council. I've seen you give testimony, Valentine's daughter."

Clary looked doubtfully at the blade. "I've seen two men bear the larger version of that sword, and I hated them both. There are no Morgensterns in this world now who are dedicated to anything but evil."

Ja ~ Cassandra Clare

There is no formula to it because writing every song, for me, is a little journey. The first note has to lift you and make you go, 'What's this?' You play C, but why is it that one day it leads to G and it didn't yesterday? I don't know. It's everything. It's the walk you take in the morning, it's the night before, the meeting with people, landscapes, the chats, all of that evolves in some way into melody, but I'm not sure how it's going to happen. I'm dealing with the unknown all the time and that is exciting. ~ Enya

There must be a subject to know the good and evil. Thatsubject is the ego. ~ Ramana Maharshi

Movie. What's my favorite kind of movie?"
"Is there a point to this?"
"Please, Lucy. What's my favorite movie?"
"Horror. Why?"
"No reason," I sighed as I slouched back in the chair.
"And would you stop that! Please? It's distracting," she said as she
slammed her hand down on top of mine to stop me from twirling my ring.
I jerked my hand out from under hers so I could cross my arms over my
chest.
"What's with you today?" Her tone was saturated with distaste.
"Nothing."
"Well, you're being awfully annoying for nothing to be wrong," she
retorted. "Go ahead, Josh. I'm listening now."
I could feel the cold emanating from her and flowing in my direction. It
had been this way for a while I just didn't want to see it.
Danny and Josh looked at me and then awkwardly focused on other
things. ~ Kaitlin Scott

In the psychotherapeutic worldview to which all good liberals subscribe, there is no evil, only victimhood. The robber and the robbed, the murderer and the murdered, are alike the victims of circumstance, united by the events that overtook them. Future generations (I hope) will find it curious how, in the century of Stalin and Hitler, we have been so eager to deny man's capacity for evil. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

There is a little furnace within every heart that burns pain. It is formed by a masonry of scars as tick by tick the tireless mechanics of life strip the innocence bestowed upon us at birth. There are some in whom life builds the furnace small and controllable, a passionate heat to burn off the losses, the harsh words and petty disappointments, leaving us cleaner for it. There are others. There are those whose innocence is assaulted early and with such brutality, that it goes beyond all the boundaries of deities and angels to stray into the world of unfettered evil. They build their furnaces differently. ~ Robert E. Dunn

Isn't forgiveness a holy virtue? And if so, then why do we insist on keeping historical records of resentment? Is the Creator an advocate of love or hate? And if love, then why are we still pushing so much hatred? What is there ever to be gained from vocalizing hatred? Only more hatred. Who wants that? And why? ~ Suzy Kassem

Women are born to serve and breed, and when we fail at this, what else is there? What is it that we can do that men can't? We bring their screaming mouths into this world only to be told by those mouths, now grown, that we're lesser than. Only good for being on our knees, backs, or perched over stoves. We're told, You're smart for a woman, you're mouthy for a woman, you're brazen for a woman. They tell us we're dangerous and emotional, prone to hysterics like landmines, and I wonder, if this is true, why aren't they afraid? ~ Felicia C. Sullivan

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain. ~ Martin Luther

Carnal lust rules where there is no love of God. ~ Saint Augustine

God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning. ~ Peter Kreeft

There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter into our civil affairs, our government soon would be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed. Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.
[Weiss v. District Board, March 18, 1890] ~ Supreme Court Of Wisconsin

I like to hope that there are more good people in the world than evil people' she said. 'I would like to hope that too', the old man said, 'but I don't. There are good people, however, and our duty in life is to be one of them, even though we will generally be outnumbered. ~ Janette Turner Hospital

I have always loved simplicity. With you, everything's black and white, Richie had said, like an accusation; but the truth is that almost every murder case is, if not simple, capable of simplicity, and that this is not only necessary but breathtaking, that if there are miracles then this is one. In these rooms, the world's vast hissing tangle of shadows burns away, all its treacherous grays are honed to the stark purity of a bare blade, two-edged: cause and effect, good and evil. To me, these rooms are beautiful. I go into them the way a boxer goes into the ring: intent, invincible, home. ~ Tana French

There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can't isolate yourself and say that the evil that is in you shall not spread. Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease. ~ George Eliot

I don't believe there is any such definition, there is no such thing as evil, only moral judgments based on what society believes to be wrong behavior. ~ Nikolas Schreck

As for the ridiculous fear of making things below one's potential abilities ... No, there is the root of the evil. There is the hiding place of stupidity I must attack: vain mortal, you are limited by nothing ... ~ Eugene Delacroix

Night-time. Why is it, I wonder…
Always, always it is at night when
The fury of a hurricane makes itself felt.
Perhaps it is because the spirit of the storm
Delights in the darkness, for there it can
Unleash its rage most potently, most
Anonymously, upon the element of earth?
Or perhaps it is simply because we
Humans are afraid of the dark. ~ Stephanie Osborn

Woe beside those who live by way of examples! Life is not with them. If you live according to an example, you thus live the life of that example, but who should live your own life if not yourself? So live yourselves.
The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you? Yet who today knows this? Who knows the way to the eternally fruitful climes of the soul, You seek the way through mere appearances, you study books and give ear to all kinds of opinion. What good is all that?
There is only one way and that is your way.
You seek the path? I warn you away from my own. It can also be the wrong way for you.
May each go his own way.
I will be no savior, no lawgiver, no master teacher unto you. You are no longer little children.
Giving laws, wanting improvements, making things easier, has all become wrong and evil. May each one seek out his own way. The way leads to mutual love in community. Men will come to see and feel the similarity and commonality of their ways.
Laws and teachings held in common compel people to solitude, so that they may escape the pressure of undesirable contact, but solitude makes people hostile and venomous.
Therefore give people dignity and let each of them stand apart, so that each may find his own fellowship and love it.
Power stands against power, con ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

If you feel your school is failing you, the question is why. Is it a lack of parental involvement, large classes, school violence, poor learning environment? Are there any standards to determine where problems are? Are there tutoring or mentoring programs? If the school is still failing after 3 years then what are your options? ~ John Rowland

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. ~ Lao-Tzu

Listen, Misaki. In this world, there is an evil organization. Its name is N.H.K. N.H.K. is a huge organization that spans the entire globe. They're an evil, secret society, and they're the ones who put us through this pain. It's all the N.H.K.'s fault. After this, if anything bad happens around you, it's all the N.H.K.'s doing. Everything is the N.H.K.'s fault!
For starters, the name N.H.K. itself is simply a coincidence. The actual name doesn't matter at all. If you don't like "N.H.K.", you can call it whatever you want. If you wish, you can even call it Satan. Or call it the evil God. It all means the same thing.
It's true. The names don't matter at all. They're just a set of sounds. An imaginary enemy torturing you: That is the real essence of N.H.K. For example, take that girl from my high school literature club. To her, it could signify the 'Nihon Hiyowa Kyokai', as her own weakness continually defeated her. She was weak in both mind and spirit.
[...] In the case of Misaki, N.H.K. means 'Nihon Hikan Kyokai'. Because of the misfortunes you were born with, Misaki, you saw everything in a pessimistic way. Please, forgive me for being alive. Don't hate me. You were always were self-defeating like that.
Then, my own N.H.K... Well, it's actually the N.H.K.'s fault that I became a hikikomori, just as it's their fault that you suffer, Misaki. That's the truth. I learned this through a certain technique. I fought with them. I've been fighting them for a long t ~ Tatsuhiko Takimoto

The garden is the place I go for refuge and shelter, not the house. In the house are duties and annoyances, servants to exhort and admonish, furniture, and meals; but out there blessings crowd round me at every step
it is there that I am sorry for the unkindness in me, for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than they feel; it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven, there that I feel protected and at home, and every flower and weed is a friend and every tree a lover. When I have been vexed I run to them for comfort, and when I have been angry without just cause, it is there I find absolution. Did ever a woman have so many friends? And always the same, always ready to welcome me and fill me with cheerful thoughts. Happy children of a common Father, why should I, their own sister, be less content and joyous than they? ~ Elizabeth Von Arnim

How's happiness class going, by the way?"
"Okay, so far."
"Are you feeling happy?" he asks with the hint of a smirk.
I shrug. "The professor says that happiness is wanting what you have."
Christian makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. "I see. Happiness is wanting what you have. Well, there you go. So what's the problem, then?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why is the class only okay?"
"Oh." I bit my lip, then confess. "Every time I meditate, I start glowing. ~ Cynthia Hand

Human desire is the criterion of all truth and all good. Truth does not lie beyond humanity, but is one of the products of the human mind and feeling. There is really nothing to fear. The motive of fear in religion is base ... ~ D.H. Lawrence

She might have wallowed a long while in the pleasures of resistance and the challenge of discovering how unrestrained she could be. But she would have been at home. At home you flip out a little and that's it. You do not have the pleasure of the unadulterated pleasure. You don't get to the point where you flip out a little so many times that you finally decide it's such a great, great kick, why not flip out a lot? At home there is no opportunity to douse yourself in this squalor. At home you can't live where the disorder is. At home you can't live where nothing is reined in. At home there is the tremendous discrepancy between the way she imagines the world to be and the way the world is for her. Well, no longer is there that dissonance to disturb her equilibrium. ~ Philip Roth

It is a fact, however, that there is no rest for the wicked. ~ Muriel Lester

( ... ) But Gaia had absorbed the new information. "I won't need to kill billions, Diana. When Nemesis is gone, there will be no other like me. Just me alone. I will grow and spread, one body and then another, and soon there will be so many of me that it will be impossible to eradicate me. Eventually all will be me, and I will be all."
"Won't that be boring?" Diana asked. "You'd be dating yourself. You'll have no one to discuss your evil plans with. ( ... ) ~ Michael Grant

No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression. ~ Louis D. Brandeis

In myths, the hero survives.
The evil is vanquished.
The world is set right.
Sometimes there are celebrations, and sometimes there are funerals.
The dead are buried. The living move on.
Nothing changes.
Everything changes.
This is a myth.
This is not a myth. ~ V.E. Schwab

Today, many of us are trying to understand just what male and female energies are, since we are calling old rigid stereotypes into questions. There is a risk of replacing such stereotypes with even more politically correct rigid stereotypes. The destructive aspect of the masculine has been emphasized in recent years, but both the feminine and the masculine have destructive sides. (The evil witch in fairy tales is an example of the destructive feminine.) Love is the ultimate nature of everything; it is not just the feminine that is loving. We tend to think of female energy as nurturing because it is undirected - it includes everything - but perhaps one could say that the feminine loves and nurtures in a being way, and the masculine does so in a doing way. We are each capable of loving in both ways. ~ Shepherd Hoodwin

Why isn't the movie industry forced to open its shooting locations to an organization that is there to advocate for animal actors? The industry isn't allowed to pick and choose which movies using young children it will or won't allow to be monitored. The vulnerable should be protected. ~ Elayne Boosler

For many years I have been asking myself why intelligent children act unintelligently at school. The simple answer is, "Because they're scared." I used to suspect that children's defeatism had something to do with their bad work in school, but I thought I could clear it away with hearty cries of "Onward! You can do it!" What I now see for the first time is the mechanism by which fear destroys intelligence, the way it affects a child's whole way of looking at, thinking about, and dealing with life. So we have two problems, not one: to stop children from being afraid, and then to break them of the bad thinking habits into which their fears have driven them.

What is most surprising of all is how much fear there is in school. Why is so little said about it. Perhaps most people do not recognize fear in children when they see it. They can read the grossest signs of fear; they know what the trouble is when a child clings howling to his mother; but the subtler signs of fear escaping them. It is these signs, in children's faces, voices, and gestures, in their movements and ways of working, that tell me plainly that most children in school are scared most of the time, many of them very scared. Like good soldiers, they control their fears, live with them, and adjust themselves to them. But the trouble is, and here is a vital difference between school and war, that the adjustments children make to their fears are almost wholly bad, destructive of their intelligence and capacit ~ John Holt

It is also significant that the play opens with the objective presence of supernatural forces. The witches are not the figment of someone else's imagination because there is nobody else present to witness them. They are alone, and therefore they stand alone, utterly independent. We are in the real presence of evil, an evil that really exists whether we like it or not, an evil that is not merely the product of our fetid fetishes or our fevered imaginations. In its formal structure, therefore, Macbeth places us unequivocally in a supernatural cosmos, rendering implausible all materialistic interpretations of the play's intrinsic meaning. ~ William Shakespeare

I was here, pet. I was always here. Even if you told me you needed me just for an hour, for this, I would have been there." Marcus spoke gruffly into his hair, holding him tighter. "Why is it so fucking hard for you to believe I love you? ~ Joey W. Hill

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice" (James 3:14 ~ Craig Groeschel