Capitalism is an evil not because it defends the legal right to property, but because it is of its nature the use of that legal right for the defense of a privileged few against a much greater number who, though free and equal citizens, are without economic basis of their own. Therefore the root evil which we roughly term “Capitalism:” should more accurately be termed “Proletarianism”; for the characteristic of the bad state of Society which we call today “Capitalist,” is not the fact that the few own, but the fact that the man, though politically equal to their masters and free to exercise all the functions of a citizen, cannot enjoy full economic freedom. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 139.]
Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil.
If ye do well, to your own behoof will ye do it; and if ye do evil, against yourselves will ye do it.--_Koran._
Malum nascens facile opprimitur; inveteratum fit robustius=--An evil habit is easily subdued in the beginning, but when it becomes inveterate it gains strength.
Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and vileness, and enjoy it to the full.
Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.--_Locke._
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.
How little was taught by Christ, and yet that is enough, and every addition is of evil. Love God, love men--that is the whole law and the prophets--not the Creeds and the Catechism and the Articles and the endless theological discussions. We want no more, and those who try to fulfil that simple law, know best how difficult it is, and how our whole life and our whole power are hardly sufficient to fulfil that short law.
Sunt bona mixta malis, sunt mala mixta bonis=--Good is mixed with evil, and evil with good.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But being season'd with a gracious voice Obscures the show of evil?
No evil can touch him who looks on human beauty; he feels himself at one with himself and with the world.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
All this excludes but one evil,--poverty.
Timely advised, the coming evil shun; / Better not do the deed, than weep it done.
Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.
How by the aid of a machine many may remain for some time under water. And how and why I do not describe my method of remaining under water and of living long without food; and I do not publish nor divulge these things by reason of the evil nature of man, who would use them for assassinations at the bottom of the sea and to destroy and sink ships, together with the men on board of them; and notwithstanding I will teach other things which are not dangerous....
Men never commit evil so fully and so gaily as when they do so for conscience sake.
The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of their morals, but you are like them in evil.
"Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!"
When we wish to think of God, there is a something which turns us aside, and tempts us to think on other subjects; all this is evil and born with us.
Nothing in the dealings of Heaven with Earth is so wonderful to me as the way in which the evil angels are allowed to spot, pervert, and bring to nothing, or to worse, the powers of the greatest men: so that Greece must be ruined, for all that Plato can say; Geneva, for all that Calvin can say; England, for all that Sir Thomas More and Bacon can say; and only Gounod's "Faust" to be the visible outcome to Europe of the school of Weimar.
~Evil.~--Evil is in antagonism with the entire creation.--_Zschokke._
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil, all the days of her life. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed.
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD: Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, "I'm in favor of privatization," or, "I'm deeply in favor of public ownership." I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case.
One single war — we all know — may be productive of more evil, immediate and subsequent, than hundreds of years of the unchecked action of the mutual-aid principle may be productive of good.
Unstained thoughts do seldom dream on evil; / Birds never limed no secret bushes fear.
Bonis vel malis avibus=--Under good, or evil, omens.
Strong passions are the life of manly virtues. But they need not necessarily be evil because they are passions and because they are strong. The passions may be likened to blood horses, that need training and the curb only to enable them whom they carry to achieve the most glorious triumphs.
If work is hard, want of work is a great evil.
Nature knows how to convert evil to good; Nature utilises misers, fanatics, showmen, egotists to accomplish her ends; but we must not think better of the foible for that.
Maybe I don’t blame myself for what happened, but when they tell you that something was completely and utterly random, they’re also telling you something else. That nothing you do matters. It doesn’t matter if you do everything right, if you dress the right way and act the right way and follow all the rules, because evil will find you anyway. Evil’s resourceful that way.
Pelt all dogs that bark, and you will need many stones.= _Pr._ [Greek: pem' epi pemati]--Evil on the top of evil.
I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission; and will, at any rate, view with suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the Divine government, which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake,--to be corrected by and by. On the other hand, the predominance of happiness among living things--their lavish beauty--the secret and wonderful harmony which pervades them all, from the highest to the lowest, are equally striking refutations of that modern Manichean doctrine, which exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked with many tears, for mere utilitarian ends.
Truth does not do as much good in the world as the shows of it do of evil.
_Title: How it happens that men believe so many liars, who say they have seen miracles, and do not believe any of those who say they have secrets to make men immortal or render them young again._--Having considered how it happens that men have believed so many impostors, who pretend they have remedies, often to the length of putting their lives into their hands, it appears to me that the true cause is that there are true remedies. For it would not be possible there should be so many false, to which so much credence is given, were there none true. Were there no remedy for any evil, and were all diseases incurable, it is impossible that men should ever have imagined that they could give remedies, and still more impossible that so many others should have believed those who boasted that they had them. Just as if a man boasted that he could prevent death, no one would believe him because there is no example of this. But as there are a number of remedies which are approved as true, even by the knowledge of the greatest men, the belief of men is thereby inclined; and since the thing was known to be possible, it has been therefore concluded that it was. For the public as a rule reasons thus: A thing is possible, therefore it is; because the thing cannot be denied generally, since there are particular effects which are true, the people, who cannot discriminate which among particular effects are true, believe them all. This is the reason that so many false effects are attributed to the moon, because there are some true, such as the tide.
We are so unhappy that we cannot take pleasure in a thing, save on condition of being troubled if it turn out ill, as a thousand things may do, and do every hour. He who should find the secret of rejoicing in good without being troubled at its contrary evil, would have hit the mark. It is perpetual motion.
Tombs are the clothes of the dead--a grave but a plain suit, and a rich monument one embroidered.= _Fuller._ [Greek: ton gar ouk onta hapas eiothen epainein]--All are wont to praise him who is no more. _Thucydides._ [Greek: ton tethnekota me kakologein]--Speak not evil of the dead. _Chilon._ [Greek: to holon]--The whole.
"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb."
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
~Wrong.~--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._
Religion and education are not a match for evil without the grace of God.
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
Christian! rest not until thou knowest the full, the unbroken shining of God in thy heart. To this end, yield to every stirring of it that shows thee some unconquered and perhaps unconquerable evil. Just bring it to the light; let the light shine upon it, and shine it out. Wait upon the Lord more than watchers for the morning, for "the path of the just is as the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day." Count upon it that God wants to fill thee with the light of His glory: wait on Him more than watchers for the morning. "Wait, I say, on the Lord."--_Andrew Murray._
Discontent is like ink poured into water, which fills the whole fountain full of blackness. It casts a cloud over the mind, and renders it more occupied about the evil which disquiets it than about the means of removing it.
Whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be blessed.
Honi soit qui mal y pense=--Evil be to him that evil thinks.
To escape from evil, we must be made as far as possible like God; and this resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.--_Plato._
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.
Man is flowing. In him there are all possibilities: he was stupid, now he is clever; he was evil, now he is good, and the other way around. In this is the greatness of man.
Libera me ab homine malo, a meipso=--Deliver me from the evil man, from myself.
Fons malorum=--The origin of evil.
Bon? leges malis ex moribus procreantur=--Good laws grow out of evil acts.
Sudden tumultuous popularity comes more from partial delirium on both sides than from clear insight, and is of evil omen to all concerned with it.
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,-- The source of evil one, and one of good.
As she walked quietly, she heard the voices of the soldiers on patrol. One troop of them came running along in order, their officer rapidly calling out commands. The walls were alive with soldiers, and she prayed, God of the Israelites, destroy this evil place! The prayer shocked her. She had not prayed like this before. All of her prayers had been for her family, but she knew that somehow the god of the Israelites was different from the gods of Jericho. She knew the gods of that city were futile and helpless, mere fragments of clay or stone or wood.
It is a beautiful trait in the lover's character, that he thinks no evil of the object loved.
It was the duty of the Apostles and of the early Christians in general to stand forth in the name of the only true God, and to prove to the world that their God had nothing in common with the idols worshipped at Athens and Ephesus. It was the duty of the early converts to forswear all allegiance to their former deities, and if they could not at once bring themselves to believe that the gods whom they had worshipped had no existence at all, they were naturally led on to ascribe to them a kind of demoniacal nature, and to curse them as the offspring of that new principle of Evil with which they had become acquainted in the doctrines of the early Church.... Through the whole of St. Augustine's works, and through all the works of earlier Christian divines, there runs the same spirit of hostility blinding them to all that may be good, and true, and sacred, and magnifying all that is bad, false, and corrupt, in the ancient religions of mankind. Only the Apostles and their immediate disciples venture to speak in a different and, no doubt, in a more truly Christian spirit of the old forms of worships.... What can be more convincing, more powerful, than the language of St. Paul at Athens?
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
~Place.~--In place there is a license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for in evil the best condition is not to will; the second, not to can.--_Lord Bacon._
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
cherishing the good that falls in our way, and bearing the evil, in and around us, with stout hearts set on diminishing it. So far, we all may strive in one faith towards one hope:
"One soweth, and another reapeth," is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.--_George Eliot._
Is there evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?
Not a vileness such as renders us incapable of good, nor a holiness exempt from evil.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
By evil report and good report.
Grave paupertas malum est, et intolerabile, qu? magnum domat populum=--The poverty which oppresses a great people is a grievous and intolerable evil.
And on Ps. lxxviii. The spirit goeth and returneth not again, whereof some have taken occasion of error concerning the immortality of the soul; but the sense is that this spirit is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till death, and will not return at the resurrection.
Much of the good or evil that befalls persons arises from the well or ill managing of their conversation.
My fear was now of another kind. I felt sure that the creature was what we call “good,” but I wasn’t sure whether I liked “goodness” so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that is also dreadful?
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.
By bravely enduring it, an evil which cannot be avoided is overcome.
_Heretics._--Ezekiel. All the heathens spake evil of Israel, and the Prophet did the same, yet the Israelites were so far from having a right to say to him, "You speak as the heathen," that he made it his strongest point that the heathens said the same as he.
We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.
All evil is as a nightmare; the instant you begin to= _stir
Before the curing of a strong disease, / Even in the instant of repair and health, / The fit is strongest; evils that take leave, / On their departure most of all show evil.
Love is a familiar; love is a devil: there is no evil angel but love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
Government is a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing over-much kills the self-help and energy of the governed.
The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.
It is impossible from the duty God owes us, that a man, concealing his evil doctrine, and only allowing the good to appear, pretending that he is in conformity with God and the Church, should work miracles to insinuate insensibly a false and subtle doctrine. This cannot be.
Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.
He who seeth not the filthiness of evil wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue.
How indestructibly the good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of evil!--_Carlyle._
Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.
The wisdom of life is in preventing all the evil we can, and using what is inevitable to the best purpose.
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
~Dirt.~--"Ignorance," says Ajax, "is a painless evil;" so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.--_George Eliot._
"Righteousness is not that ye turn your faces [in prayer] to the east or west; but righteousness is to him who believeth in God and the Last Day, and Angels, and Revealed Books, and Prophets; who giveth cheerfully from his substance to kinsmen, orphans, the needy, the wayfarer, and to them that ask; who freeth the prisoner and the slave; who offereth prayers at their appointed times, and giveth the ordained alms; to them who fulfil the covenants to which they have bound themselves, and who are patient in times of distress, and pain, and struggle: these are they who are sincere [in religion], and who fear to do evil (_Koran_ 2, 172)."
The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions, but by compelling them to yield their vigour to our moral nature.
To call a man ungrateful is to sum up all the evil he can be guilty of.
We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.
There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to "social peace," though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
No evil is without its compensation.
Meet insult by insult, and honour by honour. Evil can be repelled only by evil.
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. Greatest Thing in the World.
In the good as well as in the evil of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which we take it.
Artists are of three classes: those who perceive and pursue the good, and leave the evil; those who perceive and pursue the good and evil together, the whole thing as it verily is; and those who perceive and pursue the evil, and leave the good.
_Misery._--Solomon and Job best knew, and have best spoken of human misery; the former the most fortunate, the latter the most unfortunate of men; the one knowing by experience the vanity of pleasure, the other the reality of evil.
This is the essential evil of vice; it debases a man.--_Chapin._
One that feared God and eschewed evil.
_Massechet Succa_: This evil leaven has seven names in Scripture. It is called evil, an unclean prepuce, an enemy, a scandal, a heart of stone, the north wind; all this signifies the malignity which is concealed and ingrained in the heart of man.
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out.
Felices ter et amplius / Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec, malis / Divulsus qu?rimoniis, / Suprema citius solvet amor die=--Thrice happy they, and more than thrice, whom an unbroken link binds together, and whom love, unimpaired by evil rancour, will not sunder before their last day.
We by our art can be called the grandsons of God. If poetry deals with moral philosophy, painting deals with natural philosophy; if poetry describes the action of the contemplative mind, painting represents the effect in motion of the action of the mind; if poetry terrifies people with the pictures of Hell, painting does the same by depicting the same things in action. If a poet challenges the painter to represent beauty, fierceness, or an evil, an ugly or a monstrous thing, whatever variety of forms he may produce in his way, the painter will cause greater satisfaction. Are there not pictures to be seen so like reality that they deceive men and animals?
Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men—only the things they want are different.
He who imitates what is evil always exceeds; he who imitates what is good always falls short.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Money is the fruit of evil as often as the root of it.
Shall we receive good at the hands of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?
Remember, darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.