Inaction Evil Quotes & Sayings

From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil. — Charles Caleb Colton

How one realizes the shortness of life by the rapidity of sensations! I have only known Marguerite for two days, she has only been my mistress since yesterday, and she has already so completely absorbed my thoughts, my heart, and my life. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can't be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that - then surely we have an obligation to try. He — Matthew Lysiak

Inaction, letting be, neither creating nor destroying
that is my evil. And also the knower as one without desire. — Friedrich Nietzsche

A person whom works exclusively for money places a price tag on his or her soul. A person whom labors to attain fame seeks a false form of adulation. The writer ignores the lure of a glamorous life by seeking to penetrate the darkness of their own being and meditate the larger issues that frame existence. A seeker knowingly follows a path that is barren, bleak, desolate, and unproductive in terms of attaining recognition and exulted social and financial status. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The idle apprehend more things, are deeper than the industrious: no task limits their horizon; born into an eternal Sunday, they watch- - and watch themselves watching. Sloth is a somatic skepticism, the way the flesh doubts. In a world of inaction, the idle would be the only ones not to be murderers. But they do not belong to humanity, and, sweat not being their strong point, they live without suffering the consequences of Life and of Sin. Doing neither good nor evil, they disdain - spectators of the human convulsion - the weeks of time, the efforts which asphyxiate consciousness. What would they have to fear from a limitless extension of certain afternoons except the regret of having supported a crudely elementary obviousness? Then, exasperation in the truth might induce them to imitate the others and to indulge in the degrading temptation of tasks. This is the danger which threatens sloth, that miraculous residue of paradise. — Emil Cioran

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. — Haile Selassie

Acceptance is not a state of passivity or inaction. I am not saying you can't change the world, right wrongs, or replace evil with good. Acceptance is, in fact, the first step to successful action. If you don't fully accept a situation precisely the way it is, you will have difficulty changing it. Moreover, if you don't fully accept the situation, you will never really know if the situation should be changed. — Peter McWilliams

In the wake of World War II, most Democrats and liberals claimed that if justice could be done and was not, only evil intent could explain the inaction. Most Republicans and conservatives replied scornfully that the vagabonds were simply calling yet again for an equal share of wealth that others had earned. Most moderates, both Democrats and Republicans, admitted that more justice demanded to be done, but they warned that equality, absent the striving and competition that had always characterized American life, might be an attractive dream, but it was not "the" American Dream.
Pursuing the American Dream, 7, 196 — Calvin C. Jillson

Fear was the worst evil ever to plague a man, for with it came hesitation and with that, inaction, failure, death. — Melissa McPhail

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. — John Stuart Mill

Those who claim to be on the side of good yet do nothing to fight evil are on the side of evil. — Joyce Rachelle

the Holy City shall not be moved from its place because God dwells in it and is always ready to bring it help. — John Calvin

I did not speak," continued Pavel, "about that good and gracious God in whom you believe, but about the God with whom the priests threaten us as with a stick, about the God in whose name they want to force all of us to the evil will of the few. — Maxim Gorky

I think a lot of us feel the need to always be connected, and finding time to relax and sometimes play is something that I think we all need to make more time for, especially me. — Tabatha Coffey

But you can do this. You have already begun, rejoined her calm and reassuring voice softly through lips likewise motionless. You can, you are, you must, because that is what is required of you. We are all afraid, Rhissan - for what we are and what we are not, for what may or may not come - and there is neither shame nor guilt in that. Those fears are part of what it is to be human. But to allow them to paralyze you into inaction and permit the triumph of evil... now there is the shame a shame not to be borne. — D.R. Ranshaw