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ad09b6c There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it. good-and-evil life inspirational J.K. Rowling
c3e4482 What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices? good-and-evil Libba Bray
5f36ccc People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked. good-and-evil temptation wickedness Terry Pratchett
eccec73 Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man. good-and-evil Anthony Burgess
9cf9a63 I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, good-and-evil idealism politics vetinari Terry Pratchett
851810b You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me. good-and-evil good morality humor Jim Butcher
aca7297 There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't. good-and-evil prejudice heaven idealism jesus religion god life-lessons good-and-bad prejudices criminals Neil Gaiman
0009a65 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. good-and-evil villains dresden-files evil Jim Butcher
6be6721 Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I'd been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts. good-and-evil patriotism Ian Fleming
15decb8 All right I think we've been down here in the dark long enough. There's a whole other world upstairs. Take my hand, Constant Reader, and I'll be happy to lead you back into the sunshine. I'm happy to go there because I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It's you I'm not entirely sure of. good-and-evil light funny Stephen King
d3f7bf4 And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference... good-and-evil lancelet Marion Zimmer Bradley
b0564a4 Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. Dark will only swallow dark and deepen. The good and the light are the keenest weapons. good-and-evil evil Nora Roberts
e501cc3 You think that your laws correct evil - they only increase it. There is but one way to end evil - by rendering good for evil to all men without distinction. good-and-evil christianity jesus jesus-christ laws Leo Tolstoy
d489876 The people who deserved to die took forever to do so. Those who deserved to live always went too soon. good-and-evil injustice life Rick Riordan
8125757 Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal. good-and-evil love Elisabeth Elliot
f0f0ca5 Man doeth this and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knows not to what end his sense doth prompt him; for when he strikes he is blind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count the airy threads that weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, night and day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earth beneath--all those things are needful, one to the other, and who knows the end of each? good-and-evil fate time free-will choice change chain-of-events long-term circumstance intention cause-and-effect results opposites result chance crime H. Rider Haggard
2a4f972 That's the law, son. But you were never much of a one for following the law. good-and-evil violence laws Anthony Burgess
3761e05 "War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off." good-and-evil war life ethics morals Ursula K. Le Guin
6e961aa Good and Evil are opposite points on a circle, Dr. Chiver. Greater good is just halfway back to Bad. good-and-evil greater-good Sheri Holman
a1c9762 "When the prophet, a complacent fat man, Arrived at the mountain-top He cried: "Woe to my knowledge! I intended to see good white lands And bad black lands-- But the scene is grey." good-and-evil morality wisdom black-and-white gray grey white knowledge Stephen Crane
9031950 So maybe the difference isn't language. Maybe it's this: animals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do. We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. The dragons are dangerous, yes. They can do harm, yes. But they're not evil. They're beneath our morality, if you will, like any animal. Or beyond it. They have nothing to do with it. We must choose and choose again. The animals need only be and do. We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom... good-and-evil morality choice Ursula K. Le Guin
e1c3bb1 It may not be nice to be good, 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? good-and-evil good-and-bad decisions Anthony Burgess
591ad0a You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good. good-and-evil government-corruption Anthony Burgess
631a383 Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. good-and-evil violence paradox Anthony Burgess
dc917fa The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured. good-and-evil violence Anthony Burgess
29c95d1 An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is that we turn the bad into the good. All of which seems to me grossly unjust. good-and-evil government Anthony Burgess
066865f All the things of the wild have their proper uses. Only misuse makes them evil. good-and-evil right-and-wrong Ellis Peters
77e2396 People always equate beauty with good, but it just ain't so. good-and-evil Jim Butcher
a2c53e3 Tell me,' asked Stas, 'what is a wicked deed?' 'If anyone takes away Kali's cow,' he answered after a brief reflection, 'that then is a wicked deed.' 'Excellent!' exclaimed Stas, 'and what is a good one?' This time the answer came without any reflection: 'If Kali takes away the cow of somebody else, that is a good deed.' Stas was too young to perceive that similar views of evil and good deeds were enunciated in Europe not only by politicians but by whole nations. good-and-evil morality religion political-philosophy political-science Henryk Sienkiewicz
dd4df5b We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes. good-and-evil mankind humanity give-and-take triumph price cost society survival crime sin H. Rider Haggard
5c37262 I saw the truth, I saw and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the ability to live on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of people. good-and-evil goodness truth Fyodor Dostoyevsky
103138b He never spoke with any bitterness at all, no matter how awful the things he said. Are there really people without resentment, without hate, she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it, the sharecropper's wife in Alabama and the lama in Tibet and the entomologist in Peru and the millworker in Odessa and the greengrocer in London and the goatherd in Nigeria and the old, old man sharpening a stick by a dry streambed somewhere in Australia, and all the others. There is not one of us who has not known them. There are enough of them, enough to keep us going. Perhaps. good-and-evil resistance Ursula K. Le Guin
406a1e2 That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease. good-and-evil world humanity infectious-diseases summary ugliness Don DeLillo
22c6b30 The heresy of an age of reason. I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong. good-and-evil right-and-wrong Anthony Burgess
1f993c8 "It comes as no surprise to find [Norman] Mailer embracing [in the book ] a form of Manicheanism, pitting the forces of light and darkness against each other in a permanent stand-off, with humanity as the battlefield. (When asked if Jesus is part of this battle, he responds rather loftily that he thinks it is a distinct possibility.) But it is at points like this that he talks as if all the late-night undergraduate talk sessions on the question of theism had become rolled into one. 'How can we not face up to the fact that if God is All-Powerful, He cannot be All-Good. Or She cannot be All-Good.' Mailer says that questions such as this have bedevilled 'theologians', whereas it would be more accurate to say that such questions, posed by philosophers, have attempted to put theologians out of business. A long exchange on the probability of reincarnation (known to Mailer sometimes as "karmic reassignment") manages to fall slightly below the level of those undergraduate talk sessions. The Manichean stand-off leads Mailer, in closing, to speculate on what God might desire politically and to say: 'In different times, the heavens may have been partial to monarchy, to communism, and certainly the Lord was interested in democracy, in capitalism. (As was the Devil!)' I think it was at this point that I decided I would rather remember Mailer as the author of good-and-evil jesus politics religion god philosophy omnibenevolence omnipotence norman-mailer theology theism monarchy reincarnation capitalism democracy communism devil Christopher Hitchens
1fff5a2 We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what? We believed them, even though we could see that what they were doing was wicked and evil and wrong... We thought Dust must be bad too, because they were grown up and they said so. But what if it isn't? What if it's--' She said breathlessly, 'Yeah! What if it's really good... good-and-evil good original-sin evil sin Philip Pullman
a7b5135 In all Thenardier's outpourings, the words and gestures, the fury blazing in his eyes, this explosion of an evil nature brazenly exposed, the mixture of bravado and abjectness, arrogance, pettiness, rage, absurdity; the hodgepodge of genuine distress, and lying sentiment, the shamelessness of a vicious man rejoicing in viciousness, the bare crudity of an ugly soul -- in this eruption of all suffering and hatred there was something which was hideous as evil itself and still as poignant as truth. good-and-evil poverty suffering Victor Hugo
fd9bce8 A man is an angel that has become deranged, Joe Fernwright thought. Once they - all of them - had been genuine angels, and at that time they had had a choice between good and evil, so it was easy, easy being an angel. And then something happened. Something went wrong or broke down or failed. And they had become faced with the necessity of choosing not good or evil but the lesser of two evils, and so that had unhinged them and now each was a man. good-and-evil lesser-evil man Philip K. Dick
a8809a1 People who live in the luxury of a steady paycheck and food in their bellies get too caught up in right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad, heroes and villains, even truth and lies. As if we're all either one or the other. As if we all have a choice. As if I have a choice. But I don't believe in choices. I believe in survival. good-and-evil right-or-wrong survival Katie McGarry
f1b6515 "Wait and wonder when we will return, mouse - then you will really see what a battle is like." Simeon turned his head in the direction of Graypatch's voice. "Alas, I will never see anything for I am blind; but I can sense a lot. I can feel you are both evil and desperate. They say you have only one eye. I am surprised at you--even a fool with half an eye could see that you will never triumph against good if you are evil." good-and-evil good redwall Brian Jacques
6f43875 And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek . . . And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. 'You too come forth,' He will say, 'Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!' And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, 'Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!' And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, 'Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?' And He will say, 'This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.' And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him . . . and we shall weep . . . and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand everything! . . . and all will understand good-and-evil understanding the-beast sermon judgement Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8b99f5c He began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. In the Creation of Ea, which is the oldest song, it is said, 'Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky. good-and-evil self-knowledge fear death life coming-of-age manhood evil Ursula K. Le Guin
7d8cbf6 Wenn man einmal das Bose bei sich aufgenommen hat, verlangt es nicht mehr, dass man ihm glaube. good-and-evil philosophy philosophy-of-life Franz Kafka
3347acf Das Negative zu tun, ist uns noch auferlegt, das Positive ist uns schon gegeben. good-and-evil philosophy philosophy-of-life Franz Kafka
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. good-and-evil suffering history good religion god evil Ta-Nehisi Coates
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. good-and-evil struggle evil Gregory Maguire
46d77a7 Isn't there in every human soul...an initial spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the next, that good can bring out, prime, ignite, set on fire and cause to blaze splendidly, and that evil can never extinguish? good-and-evil good souls Victor Hugo
3f576f6 The notion of a natural propensity for vice is essential to Sadeian psychology; vice is innate, as is virtue, if social conditions are unalterable. This straitjacket psychology relates his fiction directly back to the black and white ethical world of fairy tale and fable; it is in conflict with his frequently expounded general theory of moral relativity, that good and evil are not the same thing at all times and in all places. good-and-evil ethics-and-moral-philosophy Angela Carter
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 --" good-and-evil magic spells white evil L. Sprague de Camp
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