What I particularly admire in him is the firm stand he has taken, not only against the oppressors of his countrymen, but also against those opportunists who are always ready to compromise with the Devil. He perceives very clearly that the world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.
[Was ich aber an ihm besonders bewundere ist seine charaktervolle Haltung nicht nur gegen die Unterdrücker seines Volkes, sondern auch gegen alle diejenigen Opportunisten, die immer bereit sind, mit dem Teufel zu paktieren. Er hat klar erkannt, dass die Welt mehr bedroht ist durch die, welche das Uebel dulden oder ihm Vorschub leisten, als durch die Uebeltäter selbst.]
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
In Josep Maria Corredor, Conversations avec Pablo Casals [Conversations with Casals], Preface (1955) [tr. Mangeot (1956)]
(Source)
The last part of the last sentence here is most frequently quoted. The text is from a letter Einstein wrote to Corredor about Pablo Casals, the Spanish cellist (30 Mar 1953), of which part was included in the Preface. The book of interviews with Casals was originally published in French, and used this translation to that language:
Ce que j’admire cependant particulièrement en lui, c’est sa ferme attitude non seulement à l’endroit des oppresseurs de son peuple, mais également à l’endroit des opportunistes toujours prêts à pactiser avec le diable. Il a su comprendre avec beaucoup de clairvoyance que le monde court un plus grand danger de la part de ceux qui tolèrent le mal ou l’encouragent que de la part de ceux-là mêmes qui le commettent.
Variants / paraphrases:More discussion and background of this quotation:
- "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
- "The world is too dangerous to live in, not because of people’s evil deeds but because of those who sit and let it happen."
- "The world is a dangerous place not because there are so many evil people in it, but because there are so many good ones willing to sit back and let evil happen."
- "The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm. It’s dangerous because of those who watch and do nothing."
- "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."
- The World Is in Greater Peril from Those Who Tolerate or Encourage Evil Than from Those Who Actually Commit It – Quote Investigator.
- ZITATFORSCHUNG: "Die Welt wird nicht bedroht von den Menschen, die böse sind, sondern von denen, die das Böse zulassen." Albert Einstein (angeblich).
- Juttas Zitateblog: Die Welt wird nicht bedroht von den Menschen, die böse sind, sondern von denen, die das Böse zulassen.
Quotations about:
evil
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
If evil Men speak good, or good Men evil of thee; examine thy Actions, and suspect thy self: But if evil Men speak evil of thee; hold it as an Honor, and by way of Thankfulness love them; but upon condition, that they continue to hate thee.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, #1253 (1725)
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 7 epigraph “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar” (1894)
KIRSTEN: Do you figure his parents just assumed he’d grow up to be evil when they named him “Zebediah Killgrave”?
MATT: Yeah, we call that the “Victor Von Doom” Paradox.
Mark Waid (b. 1962) American comic book writer, editor
Daredevil, Vol. 4, #10 (Nov 2014)
Like many men of genius, he could not understand why things obvious to him should not be so at once to other people, and found it easier to believe that they were corrupt than that they could be so stupid.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
The Apple Cart, Preface (1928)
I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
“My Day” (13 Aug 1943)
Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking.
In looking at the world as it is, we shall find it folly to deny that, to worldly success, a surer path is Villainy than Virtue.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) American author, poet, editor, literary critic
Marginalia, June 1849 (1981)
“What’s up, boss?”
“Evil’s afoot.”
“Well, sure,” Bob said, “because it refuses to learn the metric system. Otherwise it’d be up to a meter by now.”Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
White Night (2007)
The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
The Plague (1947)
The wacky thing about those bad guys is that you can’t count on them to be obvious. They forget to wax their mustaches and goatees, leave their horns at home, send their black hats to the dry cleaners. They’re funny like that.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
White Night (2007)
Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
(Attributed)
Often cited to the short story "Vignette" (also known as "Publicity and Advertising"), but not found there.
Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Coraline (2002)
Paraphrase by Gaiman of G. K. Chesterton. Gaiman included it as an epigraph, attributed to Chesterton, but without looking up the exact wording.
The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it — because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Tremendous Trifles, “The Red Angel” (1909)
Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.
[Nos erreurs et nos divisions dans la morale viennent quelquefois de ce que nous considérons les hommes comme s’ils pouvaient être tout à fait vicieux ou tout à fait bons.]
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes], # 31 (1746) [tr. Stevens (1940)]
(Source)
Don’t excuse yourself by accusing Satan.
Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) English Puritan divine, writer
(Attributed)
Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move toward what they think is Good. […] Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
“How the Church Will Change,” interview with Eugenio Scalfari, La Repubblica (1 Oct 2013) [tr. K Wallace]
(Source)
They lied to you. The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.
Umberto Eco (1932-2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, novelist
The Name of the Rose (1980)
No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realized that they’re so far over the line that they can’t remember where it was.
DARLA: You really think that safety can be plucked from the arms of an evil deed?
Steven S. DeKnight (b. 1964) American television screenwriter, producer
Angel, 4×17 “Inside Out” (2 Apr 2003)
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic, painter, writer, social thinker
The Two Paths, Lecture 5 (1859)
“What,” asked Mr. Croup, “do you want?”
“What,” asked the marquis de Carabas, a little more rhetorically, “does anyone want?”
“Dead things,” suggested Mr. Vandemar. “Extra teeth.”
It isn’t enough to stand up and fight darkness. You’ve got to stand apart from it, too. You’ve got to be different from it.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Fool Moon (2001)
What reason is there to admire ourselves because we are not as bad as the worst?
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Natural Questions, Preface (1.5) [tr. Corcoran (1921)]
Who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Troades, l. 290 [tr. Miller (1917)]
A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations, Book 9, #5 [tr. Staniforth (1964)]
Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren’t deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors — doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing. If it came to that, some angels weren’t paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary. On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it. And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)
He that scattereth Thorns must not go Barefoot.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2289 (1732)
(Source)
No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even — perhaps even especially — those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call “hard but necessary steps” for the good of their nation. We’re all the hero of our own story.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Turn Coat (2009)
That truth is that monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.
The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) English poet
“Aurora Leigh” (1857)
He who does not punish evil commends it to be done.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian artist, engineer, scientist, polymath
Note-books (1508-1518)
(Source)
In some versions, this is translated as "commands it to be done."
No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.
[Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.]
Juvenal (c.55-127) Roman satirist [Decimus Junius Juvinalis]
Satires, Satire 2, l. 83
Alt. trans.: "No one ever became thoroughly bad all at once" or "No one's only corrupted overnight" or "No one reaches the depths of turpitude all at once."
Evil flows backward swelling its source.
Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) American educator, novelist, poet
“Lanterns in the Night,” Maxim 40, The Jewish Forum (Aug 1948)
The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one’s own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard — every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals, which they serve.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
The Art of Loving, ch. 5 (1956)
(Source)
But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, & perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in church & state: that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated & sophisticated, by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth & power to themselves, that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue & cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Baldwin (unsent) (19 Jan 1810)
(Source)
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction […] The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 184 (1955)
(Source)
The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion — it is an evil government.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 147 (1955)
(Source)
By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled “good” or “bad.” But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
(Source)
To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother’s keeper. To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right. It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep. At this moment the oppressed fails to be his brother’s keeper. So acquiescence — while often the easier way — is not the moral way. It is the way of the coward.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Stride Toward Freedom, ch. 11 “Where Do We Go from Here?” (1958)
(Source)
Man is neither villain nor hero; he is rather both villain and hero.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Strength to Love, ch. 11 “What Is Man?” (1963)
(Source)
Describing a more realistic view of humanity neither in "the thesis of pessimistic materialism nor the antithesis of optimistic humanism."
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
Erewhon, ch. 20 (1872)
See Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10
I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.
Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 1, Introduction (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
Alt. trans.: "It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope." [Discourse upon the First Ten Books of Livy, Book 1, ch. 3 (1513-18) [tr. Gilbert]]
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 15, § 65 (1951)
(Source)
There are more Fools than Knaves in the World,
Else the Knaves would not have enough to live upon.Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
Prose Observations, “Sundry Thoughts”
(Source)
Ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk, “On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority” (1822)
Imitate what is good wheresoever thou findest it, though among Turks, Jews, Pagans, or even Papists. And abominate Evil, though in thy nearest Relation.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, # 780 (1725)
(Source)
Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 28 “Reunion” (1852)
(Source)
Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can, — for one angry man is as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly, completely, and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs, — and when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably, remembering that nine tenths of their perversity comes from outside influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a member of society, may be fractionally responsible.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Elsie Venner, ch. 16 [The Professor] (1859)
(Source)
To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
(Source)
It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 5, § 23 (1916)
(Source)
Variants:
EVIL. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)
Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949)
