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bdf5fbd
|
"Now that little problem of yours, this business of not knowing good men from bad men and villains from heroes and so forth...There's still plenty for you to do. And you'll do it. And when you fall in love and have a mistress or a wife and children to look after, it will all seem easier." He opened the door but stopped on the threshold. "Surround yourself with human beings, my dear. They are easier to fight for than principles." He laughed. "But don't let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine." With a wave of his hand he shut the door."
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|
evil
james-bond
machine
principals
|
Ian Fleming |
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63d830a
|
He had met this sort of white man before, earnest and believing what came out of their mouths. The veracity of their words was another matter, but at least they believed them. The southern white man was spat from the loins of the devil and there was no way to forecast his next evil act.
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|
belief
evil
race-relations
south
southerners
truth
white-people
|
Colson Whitehead |
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a93194d
|
How would I explain to him that I couldn't make peace with him? How would I explain that if I did I would immediately lose my inner balance? How would I explain that one of the arms of my internal scales would suddenly shoot upward? How would I explain that my hatred of him counterbalanced the weight of evil that had fallen on my youth? How would I explain that he embodied all the evils in my life? How would I explain to him that I needed to hate him?
|
|
czech
definition
enemy
evil
forgiveness
hate
meaning
novel
peace
structure
|
Milan Kundera |
|
d58ad88
|
Die Menschen tun das Bose nie so vollstandig und begeistert, wie wenn sie es aus religioser Uberzeugung tun.
|
|
evil
religion
|
Umberto Eco |
|
d32750f
|
"I hate it!" Charles Wallace cried passionately. "I hate the Dark Thing!"
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|
evil
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
6cda9f4
|
... on the historical scale, the damages wrought by individual violence for selfish motives are insignificant compared to the holocausts resulting from self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems. It is derived from primitive identification instead of mature social integration; it entails the partial surrender of personal responsibility and produces the quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology.
|
|
depersonalization
disease
evil
violence
|
Arthur Koestler |
|
83f3b24
|
This mundus tenebrosus, this shaddowy world of Mankind, is sunk into Night; there is not a Field without its Spirits, nor a City without its Daemons, and the Lunaticks speak Prophesies while the Wise men fall into the Pitte.
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|
evil
lunatics
the-pit
|
Peter Ackroyd |
|
7698184
|
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.
|
|
devil
evil
sin
|
Dan Simmons |
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075974c
|
The devil is not the prince of matter; the devil is the arrogance of 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 from whence he came.
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|
doubt
evil
faith
|
Umberto Eco |
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a71087c
|
It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something you do not understand is the true nature of evil.
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|
evil
|
Jeanette Winterson |
|
2ccd69c
|
More than once have I thought, Why does crime, even when as powerful as Caesar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? I consider that to murder a brother, a mother, a wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Caesar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful. Therefore a man of genuine aesthetic feeling is also a virtuous man. Hence I am virtuous.
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|
evil
insightful
rome
|
Henryk Sienkiewicz |
|
3a5b580
|
Nothing in the record of human history argues for divine morality, and a great deal argues against it. What we know is that good people very often suffer terribly, while the perpetrators of horrific evil backstroke through all the pleasures of the world. There is no evidence that the score is ever evened in this life or any after.
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|
evil
god
good
good-and-evil
history
religion
suffering
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
adfc118
|
Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surround us or we light a candle to see by. We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up.... Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it.
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|
darkness
evil
good
growing-up
inspiration
light
raising-children
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
2befce3
|
"Larger than life character; a couple of hundred years ago he would have been a pirate. "When in evil company, try to blend in" - that was one of his."
|
|
evil
larger-than-life
pirate
|
Garth Ennis |
|
df18d8e
|
No rational person would intentionally commit an act of evil, for everyone knows that it would bring the wrath of the community upon him. (Socrates)
|
|
evil
evil-people
rational-thought
socrates
|
Karen Essex |
|
235e1af
|
One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions.
|
|
evil
good-and-evil
struggle
|
Gregory Maguire |
|
29ff3a3
|
I had been agitating for a pet for some time. In my head I had a white rabbit called Ezra who bit people who ignored me. Ezra's pelt was as white as the soul in heaven but his heart was black...
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|
evil
good
pets
rabbits
vengeance
|
Jeanette Winterson |
|
1fa9a3d
|
But the very action of naming something that subsequently happens--of wishing specific evil, and that evil coming to pass--this still has a shiver of the otherworldly about it.
|
|
evil
julian-barnes
otherworldly
prophetic
the-sense-of-an-ending
uncanny
|
Julian Barnes |
|
0775d8d
|
As a Freudian, I'm not supposed to use words like evil; my business is with instinct, memory, and desire. Nevertheless, I've been wondering, lately, whether evil might exist. If it does, I've been thinking, it might be like what Freud called the navel of the dream, the place where all the lines of meaning the analyst has so carefully traced through the patient's life vanish into the unknown. But where the navel of the dream is essentially harmless phenomenon, a point where the dream's meaning is sufficiently understood, and further interpretation would be pointless, evil is a mystery with power. It reaches up into the world and makes everything mysterious.
|
|
evil
freudian
|
Paul La Farge |
|
d420301
|
The heart of evil beats in Afghanistan. When men hold every advantage, neither wealth, nor beauty, nor intelligence, nor education, nor strength, nor family can compete with gender. Women have only prayer and hope as allies.
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|
boys
evil
feminism
hope
prayer
rights
war
women
|
Jean Sasson |
|
789ea23
|
I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.
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|
evil
slavery
superstition
war
|
W.E.B. Du Bois |
|
da96124
|
This is true, at the least, that no veil of beauty hides the evils from our sight.
|
|
evil
truth
|
Jane Smiley |
|
b40fa13
|
I don't think this one's business as usual. Me evil cunt sense is tinglin'.
|
|
evil
sense
unusual
|
Garth Ennis |
|
a5388c5
|
"Not at all," persisted Chalmers, unaware that Shea was trying to shush him. "The people of the country have agreed to call magic 'white' when practised for lawful ends by duly authorized agents of the governing authority, and 'black' when practised by unauthorized persons for criminal ends. That is not to say that the principles of the science -- or art -- are not the same in either event. You should confine such terms as 'black' and 'white' to the objects for which the magic is performed, and not apply it to the science itself, which like all branches of knowledge is morally neutral --" "But," protested Belphebe, "is't not that the spell used to, let us say, kidnap a worthy citizen be different from that used to trap a malefactor?" "Verbally but not structurally," Chalmers went on. After some minutes of wrangling, Chalmers held up the bone of his drumstick. "I think I can, for instance, conjure the parrot back on this bone -- or at least fetch another parrot in place of the one we ate. Will you concede, young lady, that that is a harmless manifestation of the art?" "Aye, for the now," said the girl. "Though I know you schoolmen; say 'I admit this; I concede that,' are ere long one finds oneself conceded into a noose." "Therefore it would be 'white' magic. But suppose I desired the parrot for some -- uh -- illegal purpose --" "What manner of crime for ensample, good sir?" asked Belphebe. "I -- uh -- can't think just now. Assume that I did. The spell would be the same in either case --" "Ah, but would it?" cried Belphebe. "Let me see you conjure a brace of parrots, one fair, one foul; then truly I'll concede." Chalmers frowned. "Harold, what would be a legal purpose for which to conjure a parrot?" Shea shrugged. "If you really want an answer, no purpose would be as legal as any, unless there's something in gamelaws. Personally I think it's the silliest damned argument --"
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|
evil
good-and-evil
magic
spells
white
|
L. Sprague de Camp |
|
eb34ba9
|
The world (including Drapervilleh is not a nice place, and the innocent and the young have to take their chances. They cannot be watched over, twenty-four hours of the day. At what moment, from what hiding-place, the idea of evil will strike, there is no telling. And when it does, the result is not always disastrous. Children have their own incalculable strength and weakness, and this, for all their seeming helplessness, will determine the pattern of their lives. Even when you suspect why they fall downstairs, you cannot be sure. You have no way of knowing whether their fright is permanent or can be healed by putting butter on the large lump that comes out on their foreheads after a fall.
|
|
danger
evil
parenting
|
William Maxwell |
|
ef729d0
|
It is not simply that suppression of self is required before accurate vision can be obtained. The great artist sees his objects (and this is true whether they are sad, absurd, repulsive or even evil) in a light of justice and mercy. The direction of attention is, contrary to nature, outward, away from self which reduces all to a false unity, towards the great surprising variety of the world, and the ability so to direct attention is love.
|
|
attention
evil
good
learning-to-see
love
self
|
Iris Murdoch |
|
84c0f74
|
Thomas Blanky wondered if he had been an instrument of evil -- or perhaps just of folly -- when he had used his more than three decades of ice-master skills to get 126 men the impossible 250 miles through ice to this place where all they could do was die
|
|
death
evil
folly
ice
sailing
ship
skill
|
Dan Simmons |
|
c80a4a3
|
There are so many shady things happening in this country, they're happening all around us all the time, and we just accept them.
|
|
corruption
country
crime
evil
mystery
philosophy
truth
united-states
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
48f5e08
|
It seems to me that evil is a kind of ultimate greed, a greed that is so all-encompassing that it can't ever see anything lovely, rare, or precious without wanting to possess it. A greed so total that if it can't possess these things, it will destroy them rather than chance that someone else might have them. And a greed so intense that even having these things never causes it to lessen one iota -- the lovely, the rare and the precious never affect it except to make it want them.
|
|
destruction
evil
greed
obsession
|
Mercedes Lackey |
|
6a3e392
|
"It's a note. Let me read it for you. 'Couldn't anyone else see that they were all slaves of Satan? I had to cleanse the world of their evil. I am the hand of God. Why else would security have let me into the building with an assault rifle in my suitcase? I am a divine instrument.'" Tommy paused and looked up. "That's all I have so far, but I'll guess I end it with an apology to my mom. What do you think?"
|
|
evil
humor
writing
|
Christopher Moore |