Quotes & Sayings About Inherent Evil

Evil, above all evil on the scale practiced by Nazi Germany, can never be satisfactorily remembered. The very enormity of the crime renders all memorialisation incomplete. Its inherent implausibility - the sheer difficulty of conceiving of it in calm retrospect - opens the door to diminution and even denial. Impossible to remember as it truly was, it is inherently vulnerable to being remembered as it wasn't. — Tony Judt

In sum, doubling is the psychological means by which one invokes the evil potential of the self. That evil is neither inherent in the self nor foreign to it. To live out the doubling and call forth the evil is a moral choice for which one is responsible, whatever the level of consciousness involved. — Robert Jay Lifton

You see, evil alwys contains the seeds of its own destruction' said the angel said, 'It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moment of apparent triumph. No matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how apparently successful it may seem upon the way, at the end it will wreck itself. It will founder upon the rocks of inquity and sink head first to vanish without trace into the seas of oblivion. — Terry Pratchett

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul. — Mahatma Gandhi

God lives in my soul, and I must spend my life scrubbing my soul clean of any trace of sin so that it derserves to host his presence. Repentance is a daily chore; at each morning prayer session we repent in advance for the sins we will commit that day. I look around at the others, who must sincerly believe in their inherent evil, as they are shamelessly crying and wailing to God to help them expunge the yetzer hara, or evil inclination, from their consciousness. — Deborah Feldman

There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil. — Benjamin Haydon

Every man should be responsible to others, nor should anyone be allowed to do just as he pleases; for where absolute freedom is allowed there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man. But the principle of responsibility secures that which is the greatest good in states; the right persons rule and are prevented from doing wrong, and the people have their due. It is evident that this is the best kind of democracy, and why? because the people are drawn from a certain class. — Aristotle.

God's irony: that in order to fight and defeat the threat of terrorism, we shall have to be clear about the principle of justice that allows us to understand what is evil in terrorism. And that principle of justice is the claim of justice that is inherent in every innocent human life. But if that claim was there in the Twin Towers, if it was there on the airplanes that those terrorists attacked, you explain to me why it is not there in the womb! — Alan Keyes

I've spent my entire existence watching over children, trying to keep the evil from tainting them. I look at the kids and see their inherent goodness, their innocence, and their compassion. They're born that way. They only change, only turn their backs on the world, when the world turns their back on them. — J.M. Darhower

In my philosophy, the meaning of life derives from the people one has known and loved. I have met my share of evil people and know what they are capable of - I was at the liberation of Dachau - but I have always held that evil is not inherent in men and women. I still believe that within a caring society, only the best people will flourish. That is the spirit that has moved me to photograph. — Walter Rosenblum

Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. — T.E. Lawrence

Evil is by nature fearful and superstitious; therefore it boasts. And thus boasting it succumbs, not to the power of good, but to its own inherent weakness. The premise of evil is a lie that must be compounded to be maintained, until it collapses of its own weight. Hence its downfall, though not immediate, is inevitable. This then is the true power of good: that good need exert so little to flourish, while evil must give all, and still fail. — James Hold

To a chemist nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist, he must lay aside his personal subjective standpoint and must understand that muck heaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that the evil passions are as inherent in life as the good ones. — Anton Chekhov

... mischief, ... arises not from our living in the world, but from the world living in us; occupying our hearts, and monopolizing our affections. — Karen Swallow Prior

When you study the wrongs you have committed before you study the wrongs done to you, you have no choice but to label yourself inherently evil, and be forced to dissociate emotionally to avoid the horrible pain in this lie. — Daniel Mackler

Being good or being evil is not something that is inherent in our nature over which we have no control, rather we define ourselves by the choices we make, moment by moment, situation by situation. All it takes is an act of will to be the best that we can be. — Laurence Overmire

In the temporal sphere, the temptation to evil inherent in every power is certainly unceasing. Only in God is the conflict between power and good ultimately resolved. But the desire to escape this conflict by rejecting every earthly power would lead to the worst inhumanity. — Carl Schmitt

You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow - choosing to live only in me. To do that, you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness. — William Paul Young

Most of us perceive Evil as an entity, a quality that is inherent in some people and not in others. Bad seeds ultimately produce bad fruits as their destinies unfold. . . Upholding a Good-Evil dichotomy also takes 'good people' off the responsibility hook. They are freed from even considering their possible role in creating, sustaining, perpetuating, or conceding to the conditions that contribute to delinquency, crime, vandalism, teasing, bullying, rape, torture, terror, and violence. — Philip G. Zimbardo

Foucault thus provides a sophisticated, language-based version of the class antagonisms of Marx - he relies on beliefs about the inherent evil of the individual's class position, or professional position, seen as 'discourse', regardless of the morality of his or her individual conduct. — Christopher Butler