Inherently Evil Quotes & Sayings

Despite my emphasis on technology, I do not view laws as inherently evil. My goals are political ones, even if my techniques are not. The only way to fundamentally succeed is by changing existing laws. If I rejected all help from the political arena I would inevitably fail. — Bram Cohen

Marriage: This terrible insoluble problem of civilisation, which created all the evil. This unnatural state of union in disunion which exacted impossibilities and forced together elements absolutely and inherently antagonistic to each other! — Rosa Campbell Praed

I do not believe it makes sense to say that nuclear weapons are inherently evil. In certain circumstances, they can play a positive role - as they have in the past. But clearly they have a power to do great harm. — Des Browne

We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. — Patton Oswalt

In his refusal to believe in anything supernatural or inherently evil, he was as unrealistic as an old voodoo queen who sees spirits everywhere. — Anne Rice

I believe some people are inherently evil.
I believe guilt is a powerful motivator.
I believe redemption is something you can strive for but never fully achieve.
I believe second chances exist only in dreams, never in reality.
I believe you don't have years, or months, or weeks to impact a person's life.
You have seconds.
Seconds to win them over, And seconds to lose them. — K.A. Tucker

Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it. — Andrew Carnegie

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

Just because a thing is present on earth, that does not mean it is inherently good or that we're supposed to consume or exploit it. The Bible itself can be used for both good and evil. That doesn't mean it's flawed. That means that it is perfect.
Again, as always, it comes down to us, and the choices we make. — Northern Adams

I don't think evil people or negative people are inherently interesting all the time. People who are good people getting better at being themselves - to me, that's something that's really interesting to watch. — Josh Radnor

The ability to lie persuasively is one of the greatest gifts a woman can possess in this life. Some critics, principally men, will argue that deception in women is inherently evil; but having spent the last fifteen years of my life in the theater, I can attest that lying not only is sometimes expedient but can save one's career. — Amanda DeWees

People must understand that science is inherently neither a potential for good nor for evil. It is a potential to be harnessed by man to do his bidding. — Glenn T. Seaborg

I know why we can't have a frank discussion with our policymakers - if you're in the government or in law enforcement you cannot acknowledge that drugs are anything but inherently evil and morally wrong. — Steven Soderbergh

So yes, black mages often can be evil. But black as a color is not inherently evil. Being influenced by black's philosophies does not necessarily mean that one will commit an evil act. That being the case, we cannot say that black represents evil. More closely aligned with evil than the other colors? Fine. More ripe with potential for evil? Sure. Evil? No. And that's a very important distinction — Mark Rosewater

God has created each soul in God's image, and every soul is inherently good. Just as certain conditions can cause mold to grow on food, so too do certain circumstances cause an un-spiritual mold to grow on a person's soul. Before long, the mold has taken control of the spirit and a person seems possessed of that mold. But no matter how controlled by the mold a person is, their soul still belongs to God, and is absolutely, always redeemable. — Sean Patrick Brennan

Desire acts as a honey trap to the unwary male, luring him into unworthy and catastrophic enterprises. The beauty of the Narnian witches isn't ancillary to their evil, but integral to it, one of the weapons in their arsenal. Evil must, after all, appear attractive if it's going to be tempting, and from there it's only a small step further to the conclusion that feminine beauty is inherently wicked. — Laura Miller

The term 'just war' is an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny and oppression without killing huge numbers of people. — Howard Zinn

She is too beautiful, I think, to not be inherently evil. — Christopher Moore

I hold the gun out from my body, my arms straight, just as Four taught me, when that was his only name. I used a gun like this to defend my father and brother from simulation-bound Dauntless. I used it to stop Eric from shooting Tobias in the head. It is not inherently evil. It is just a tool. — Veronica Roth

Fascism is the most inherently evil political ideology that man has ever devised. Wherever we see even the smallest sapling of fascism growing, we should use every just, reasonable and humane method at our disposal to rip-it out by its roots and then salt the very earth wherein it grew, so that no other such thing may ever again take root. Of course, we must also take great care to ensure that during this process, we ourselves do not become fascists in the fight against fascism. — Derek R. Audette

Listen - of course money changes everything, but so does sunlight, and so does food: These are powerful but neutral energy sources, neither inherently good nor evil but shaped only by the way we use them. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Your father is why you don't allow guns in the house?" "I just don't like them. It seems to me that no matter what they always lead to bad things. My opinion is that produced for their specific purpose, they are inherently bad." We stared at each other for a moment, then she continued, "I know that they are a necessary evil in your line of work, but I don't allow necessary evils in my home. — Craig Johnson

Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: 'I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society. — Yuval Noah Harari

I just think some books are instructions on why women are dirt or hardly exist at all except as accessories or are inherently evil and empty. — Rebecca Solnit

When any institution becomes large and compartmentalized, with departments and subdepartments, then the conscience of the institution will often become so fragmented and diluted as to be virtually nonexistent, and the organization becomes inherently evil. — M. Scott Peck

For me, heaven would be a lack of alienation. The whole time I was growing up, I felt comfort was inherently evil. I think that, for me, heaven isn't about couches and milk shakes and never having a troubling thought again. — Alice Sebold

The energy of night was far different than that of the daylight - not inherently evil, but wilder, more dangerous, more unpredictable. — Jim Butcher

I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil - you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself. — Dan Barker

They are inherently good
the bad reactions aren't basic. Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil
but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency
you may say goodness
of the human being — Norman Vincent Peale

We're a society of brats, fighting over the same toys. That, for me, is the closest we come to be inherently evil as a people. It leads to selfishness, inflexibility, and impatience -- among so many other traits that are ugly and harmful. We're combative, competitive, petty, and suffer from one fatal flaw that I can never get my head around. We recognize behavior in others that makes us insane, while turning right around and doing the exact thing to someone else. — Trevor D. Richardson

Magic isn't inherently evil. But it does seem to be terribly bad for people. — Jo Walton

The white man is not inherently evil, but America's racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings. — Malcolm X

This is why homophobia is a terrible evil: it disguises itself as concern while it is inherently hate. — Tyler Oakley

...if everybody is born essentially good, what is wrong with our society that it so often allows the goodness to go into hiding? It is easier, I suppose, just to believe that some people are born inherently evil. — Rosamund Kendal

She'd shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe even more vividly human than anyone he'd ever known. And if she was, then Grisha weren't inherently evil. They were like anyone else - full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm. To ignore that would make Matthias the monster. — Leigh Bardugo

I am convinced that grandkids are inherently evil people who tell their grandparents to just go to the library and open up an e-mail account - it's free and so simple. — Scott Douglas

There is nothing inherently evil in the process of making money,
and the notion is illogical, but that is one of the underlying tenets
in our present education system. We are taught from an early age
that making money is hard and that those who make lots of money
are morally suspect. American culture studies programs at some of
the nation's leading universities have even gone so far as to teach the
absurd and illogical notion that the rich became rich because they
enjoy privilege earned on the backs of African slaves. Minority
millionaires like entrepreneur Herman Cain, Earl Graves, Sr., and
Reginald F. Lewis prove the utter nonsense of this notion, yet this
is the illogical Progressive philosophy that has permeated our education
system. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Our presence is not inherently evil and undesirable; it just has to be at the right scale, speed, and design. We can be an expression of biodiversity as worthy as any other species with whom we have co-evolved; we have a place and a vibrant role to play in ecosystems. It is our wild excess of procreation, ill-considered consumption priorities, and unbridled frenzy of activity that drowns the possibilities and existence of individuals from other species. That is where we have gone wrong. — Will Anderson

Murder is an inherently evil act, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how convincing the rationalizations. — Bentley Little

The simple-minded always look for something - if it's not pornography, it's DVDs or the Internet or video games - but I don't think there's anything inherently evil about Facebook. — David Fincher

It is not because food, clothes and property are inherently evil that Christians today must lower their standard of living. It is because others are starving. Creation is good. But the one who gave us this gorgeous token of his affection has asked us to share it with our sisters and brothers. — Ronald J. Sider

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