This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
Maria Von Ebner-Eschenbach, or Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachová, Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach
Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good.
Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility.
Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
What is there so fearful as the expectation of evil tidings delayed? ... Misery is a more welcome visitant when she comes in her darkest guise and wraps us in perpetual black, for then the heart no longer sickens with disappointed hope.
Evil | Expectation | Heart | Expectation |
I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.
Absolute | Belief | Cause | Evil | Ideas | Imagination | Science | Thinking | Truth |
Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
Beauty | Defeat | Enemy | Evil | Love | Meaning | Opportunity | Time | Understanding | Will | Beauty |
Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.
Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
When evil acts in the world it always manages to find instruments who believe that what they do is not evil but honorable.
Whatever else you do or forbear, impose upon yourself the task of happiness; and now and then abandon yourself to the joy of laughter. And however much you condemn the evil in the world, remember that the world is not all evil; that somewhere children are at play, as you yourself in the old days; that women still find joy in the stalwart hearts of men; And that men, treading with restless feet their many paths, may yet find refuge from the storms of the world in the cheerful house of love.
Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL
It must be that evil communications corrupt good dispositions.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
If a person has done an evil turn to some one, he must receive the penalty for it and welcome the evil rebounding upon himself; and if he has done a good turn to some one, he must also receive the reward for it and enjoy the good rebounding upon himself. What he does for another, he has also done for himself, although it may take time for him to realise that this is exactly so. The law of Karma might be said to be an expression of justice or a reflection of the unity of life, in the world of duality.
Evil | Good | Justice | Law | Receive | Reflection | Reward | Time | Unity | World |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
Evil exists to glorify the good. Evil is negative good. It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good. What is evil to one at one time, becomes good at another time to somebody else.
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. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. 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.
Children | Error | Evil | Responsibility | Selfishness | Weapons | Will | World |
Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL
The chief beginning of evil is goodness in excess.
You, my Eternal Friend, witness now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me…May no one be punished because of me. May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me. Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others. Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes. Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harm. Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others, and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way. Let me forgive others, let me forgive myself, but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others. I seek peace, let me BE peace. I seek justice, let me be just. I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind. I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have. I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have. I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me. I seek a world of love, let me be loving beyond all reason, beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is “normal,” beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little. And let me be open and sensitive to all the love that is already coming to me, the love of people I know, the love that is part of the human condition, the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language, music, recipes, technology, literature, religions, agriculture, and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us. Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more explicit way. Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me. And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector. Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me so that I may fully engage in the work of Tikkun – the healing and transformation of the world social and economic order, the planet, and myself.
Acceptance | Awareness | Change | Consequences | Eternal | Evil | Family | Fear | Giving | Guidance | Heart | Love | Past | People | Strength | Suffering | Universe | Will | Witness | Words | Work | World | Guidance | Awareness | Forgive |
Man’s evil nature will have an influence on scarcity by figuring as one of its sources, inasmuch as men’s greed – their need to earn, their desire to earn even more, their egoism – causes the phenomena of hoarding, monopolization, and withholding merchandise, which intensify the phenomena of scarcity.
Desire | Evil | Greed | Influence | Nature | Need | Phenomena | Will |
The pastorate was formed against a sort of intoxication of religious behavior, examples of which are found throughout the Middle East in the second, third, and fourth centuries, and to which certain Gnostic sects in particular bear striking and indisputable testimony. In at least some of these Gnostic sects, in fact, the identification of matter with evil, and as absolute evil, obviously entailed certain consequences. This might be, for example, a kind of vertigo or enchantment provoked by a sort of unlimited asceticism that could lead to suicide: freeing oneself from matter as quickly as possible. There is also the idea, the theme, of destroying matter thorough the exhaustion of the evils it contains, of committing every possible sin, going to the very end of the domain of evil opened up by matter, and thus destroying matter. Let us sin, then, and sin to infinity. There is also the theme of the nullification of the world of the law, to destroy which one must first destroy the law, that is to say, break every law. One must respond to every law established by the world, or by the powers of the world, by violating it, systematically breaking the law and in effect, overthrowing the reign of the one who created the world.
Absolute | Asceticism | Destroy | Evil | Law | Sin | World | Asceticism |