This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.
Lord Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough and 2st Earl of Monmouth
How sacred, how beautiful, is the feeling of affection in pure and guileless bosoms! The proud may sneer at it, the fashionable may call it fable, the selfish and dissipated may affect to despise it; but the holy passion is surely of heaven, and is made evil by the corruptions of those whom it was sent to bless and to preserve.
John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life -- particularly human life -- such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.
Capacity | Character | Control | Desire | Evil | Kill | Life | Life | People | Child | Think |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.
Evil | Inevitable | Will | World | Think |
Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture.
M. C. Swabey, fully Marie Taylor Collins Swabey
Whereas the comic confronts simply logical contradictions, the tragic confronts a moral predicament. Not minor matters of true and false but crucial questions of right and wrong, good and evil face the tragic character in a tragic situation.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists. That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field. That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning. This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it. That life is the world. That my will penetrates the world. That my will is good or evil. Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world. The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father. To pray is to think about the meaning of life.
Evil | God | Good | Life | Life | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World | God | Think |
It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong; the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil can be overcome by physical means.
Evil | Mistake | Right | Wickedness |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.
Battle | Change | Evil | Good | Heart | History | Individual | Mind | Soul |
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Pain is either an evil for the body - and if so, let the body state its case - or for the soul; but the soul can maintain its own unclouded calm, and refuse to view it as an evil.
Maitri Upanishad or Maitrayaniya Upanishad
As one acts and conducts himself, so does he become. The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.
Martin Tupper, fully Martin Farquhar Tupper
To the timid heart, to the child of unbelief and dread, That leaneth on his own weak staff, and trusteth the sight of his eyes, The evil he feared shall come, for the soil is ready for the seed.
Martin Tupper, fully Martin Farquhar Tupper
A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world; vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast. Despise not thou small things, either for evil or for good; for a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth.
The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity, as often happens in old-time discipline... A room in which all the children move about usefully, intelligently, and voluntarily, without committing any rough or rude act, would seem to me a classroom very well disciplined indeed.