102 Quotes About Good and Evil

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief starves the soul; faith finds food in famine, and a table in the wilderness. In the greatest danger, faith says, "I have a great God." When outward strength is broken, faith rests on the promises. In the midst of sorrow, faith draws the sting out of every trouble, and takes out the bitterness from every affliction.

You cannot make men good by law.

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be; the mightier the forces against evil everywhere.

To seek the highest good is to live well.

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.

Too many Christians become bitter and angry in the conflict. If we descend into hatefulness, we have already lost the battle. We must cooperate with God in turning what was meant for evil into a greater good within us. This is why we bless those who would curse us: It is not only for their sakes but to preserve our own soul from its natural response toward hatred.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

It is not only that sin consists in doing evil, but in not doing the good that we know.

The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness and everyone must choose his side.

The humblest individual exerts some influence, either for good or evil, upon others.

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

How goodness heightens beauty!

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

Whenever you find a man who says he doesn't believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later.

Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

I realize that many Christians have not been praying because they have not accepted the reality of war in which we find ourselves. There is a spiritual war mode that we must appropriate. It is an aggressive stance that we take against evil. It is governed by love for people, but it is fearless and uncompromising with the powers of darkness that manipulate people to fulfill evil plans.

Defeat in doing right is nevertheless victory.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.

In contrast to the believer, the ungodly are not like trees but are like chaff. They have no roots, produce no fruit and are blown about.

Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.

Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another's.

Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already.

St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.

There is a Holy Trinity, and there is likewise a Trinity of Evil.

It is a law of our humanity, that man must know good through evil. No great principle ever triumphed but through much evil. No man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mistakes.

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

The distinctions drawn between men are commonly based on the outward appearance of goodness or badness, on the ground of moral beauty or moral deformity--is this classification scientific? Or is there a deeper distinction between the Christian and the not-a-Christian as fundamental as that between the organic and the inorganic?

The mind of him that worketh ill is not always corrupt; but the mind of him that defendeth evil is ever corrupt.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

At the very moment when the pulpit has fallen strangely silent about sin, fiction can talk of little except evil, not indeed viewed as sin, but apparently as the invariable ways of a peculiarly repulsive insect, which it can't help, poor thing; and there is no manner of use expecting anything from it, except the nastiness natural to it.

It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world, there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil.

'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'

I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend, for when at worst, they say, things always mend.

How can a mere finite human being be sure that infinite wisdom would not tolerate certain short-range evils in order for more long-range goods that we can't foresee.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Without sin, the universe is a Solemn Game: and there is no good game without rules.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.

Our best performances are so stained with sin, that it is hard to know whether they are good works or bad works.