Famous Quotes & Sayings

Quotes & Sayings About Necessary Evil

Enjoy reading and share 100 famous quotes about Necessary Evil with everyone.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Pinterest Share on Linkedin

Top Necessary Evil Quotes

Necessary Evil Quotes By Robert Fisk

Equal time is not necessary when dealing with evil. Nazis do not merit equal or fair treatment. — Robert Fisk

Necessary Evil Quotes By David Cecil

It is often said that mankind needs a faith if the world is to be improved. In fact, unless the faith is vigilantly and regularly checked by a sense of man's fallibility, it is likely to make the world worse. From Torquemada to Robespierre and Hitler the men who have made mankind suffer the most have been inspired to do so have been inspired to do so by a strong faith; so strong that it led them to think their crimes were acts of virtue necessary to help them achieve their aim, which was to build some sort of an ideal kingdom on earth. — David Cecil

Necessary Evil Quotes By Thornton Wilder

It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness. — Thornton Wilder

Necessary Evil Quotes By Ludwig Von Mises

All those evils which the [liberals] interpret as evidence of the failure of capitalism, are the necessary outcome of interference with the market. — Ludwig Von Mises

Necessary Evil Quotes By Jonathan Franzen

Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay ... cats were all about using people — Jonathan Franzen

Necessary Evil Quotes By Philip Yancey

We dare not invest so much in the kingdom of this world that we neglect our main task of introducing people to a different kind of kingdom, one based solely on God's grace and forgiveness. Passing laws to enforce morality serves a necessary function, to dam up evil, but it never solves human problems. — Philip Yancey

Necessary Evil Quotes By Simon R. Green

When all else fails, you can always damn yourself with a necessary evil, for the greater good. — Simon R. Green

Necessary Evil Quotes By Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses. By thy might, there return into us treasures that we had abandoned. By thy grace, there are released in us all the dried-up runnels of our heart. Of the riches that exist in the world, thou art the rarest and also the most delicate - thou so pure within the bowels of the earth! A man may die of thirst lying beside a magnesian spring. He may die within reach of a salt lake. He may die though he hold in his hand a jug of dew, if it be inhabited by evil salts. For thou, water, art a proud divinity, allowing no alteration, no foreignness in thy being. And the joy that thou spreadest is an infinitely simple joy. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Necessary Evil Quotes By Franz Kafka

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man. — Franz Kafka

Necessary Evil Quotes By Iain M. Banks

Naturalness?' I said, loudly. 'This lot'll tell you anything is natural; they'll tell you greed and hate and jealousy and paranoia and unthinking religious awe and fear of God and hating anybody who's another colour or thinks different is natural. Hating blacks or hating whites or hating women or hating men or hating gays; that's natural. Dog-eat-dog, looking out for number one, no lame ducks . . . Shit, they're so convinced about what's natural it's the more sophisticated ones that'll tell you suffering and evil are natural and necessary because otherwise you can't have pleasure and goodness. They'll tell you any one of their rotten stupid systems is the natural and right one, the one true way; what's natural to them is whatever they can use to fight their own grimy corner and fuck everybody else. They're no more natural than us than an amoeba is more natural than them just because it's cruder. — Iain M. Banks

Necessary Evil Quotes By Antisthenes

The most necessary learning is that which unlearns evil. — Antisthenes

Necessary Evil Quotes By Charles F. Aked

It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing. — Charles F. Aked

Necessary Evil Quotes By Edmond Burke

The only thing necessary for the continuance of evil is for a good man to do nothing. — Edmond Burke

Necessary Evil Quotes By Daniel Craig

I used to think the press was a necessary evil and now I don't think it is. I think it's something you choose. — Daniel Craig

Necessary Evil Quotes By Theodore Dalrymple

Restraints upon our natural inclinations, which left to themselves do not automatically lead us to do what is good for us and often indeed lead us to evil, are not only necessary; they are the indispensable condition of civilized existence. — Theodore Dalrymple

Necessary Evil Quotes By Al Zelczer

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is what makes information valuable. For knowledge to be useful, it must be acted upon. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1834 - 1902). All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke, 1729-1797) A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. (George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950). We must never take our freedom for granted. — Al Zelczer

Necessary Evil Quotes By W. Somerset Maugham

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless. — W. Somerset Maugham

Necessary Evil Quotes By Richard Wagner

It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews ... The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization. — Richard Wagner

Necessary Evil Quotes By Joseph Conrad

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. — Joseph Conrad

Necessary Evil Quotes By Ayn Rand

The error is this: it is proper for a creator to be optimistic, in the deepest, most basic sense, since the creator believes in a benevolent universe and functions on that premise. But it is an error to extend that optimism to other specific men. First, it's not necessary, the creator's life and the nature of the universe do not require it, his life does not depend on others. Second, man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only to him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be. The decision will affect only him; it is not (and cannot and should not be) the primary concern of any other human being. — Ayn Rand

Necessary Evil Quotes By Richard Branson

Most "necessary evils" are far more evil than necessary. — Richard Branson

Necessary Evil Quotes By Lisa Shearin

I knew there was evil in the world. Death and taxes were all necessary evils.
So was shopping.
"I hate shopping," I muttered.
"Of course you do," Phaelan said. "You're a Benares, [the daughter of a long line of professional thieves]. We're not used to paying for anything." Phaelan was my cousin; he called himself a seafaring businessman. Law enforcement in every major city called him "that damned pirate," or less flattering epithets, none of them repeatable here.
...
"Have you considered something in scarlet leather?" Phaelan mused from beside me.
"Have you considered just painting a bull's eye on my back?" I retorted.
My cousin wasn't with me because he liked shopping. He was by my side because being within five feet of me was a guarantee of getting into trouble of the worst kind. Phaelan hadn't plundered or pillaged anything in weeks. He was bored. So this morning, he was a cocky, swaggering invitation for Trouble to bring it on and do her worst. — Lisa Shearin

Necessary Evil Quotes By Chris Northern

Governments are a necessary evil. Just because something is necessary doesn't mean you should pretend that it is a good thing. Governments cannot do good, it is against their nature; it is beyond their ability; so curb them and curb the evil that they do. — Chris Northern

Necessary Evil Quotes By Gottfried Leibniz

It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted. — Gottfried Leibniz

Necessary Evil Quotes By Robert Southey

As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil. — Robert Southey

Necessary Evil Quotes By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Necessary Evil Quotes By Diana Gabaldon

The law's a necessary evil
we canna be doing without it
but do ye not think it a poor substitute for conscience? — Diana Gabaldon

Necessary Evil Quotes By George Washington

Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your reputation. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust. Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise. There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth, and pursue it steadily. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy nation. — George Washington

Necessary Evil Quotes By Michael Ennis

This explained to me
and I suppose, forgave me
my inability to see the face of this man, because whoever must deceive us in order to live will by necessity far exceed the skill of ordinary men, who are as much tempted by the desire to be honest as they are plagued by guilt and shame when they have broken faith. — Michael Ennis

Necessary Evil Quotes By Walter Raleigh

All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered. — Walter Raleigh

Necessary Evil Quotes By Lee Strobel

it's at least possible that God is wise enough to foresee that we need some pain for reasons which we may not understand but which he foresees as being necessary to some eventual good. Therefore, he's not being evil by allowing that pain to exist. — Lee Strobel

Necessary Evil Quotes By Robert Dykstra

Sadly, in our technological, impersonal, and avaricious consumer society, people merely hold on to jobs. They put in their time, leave at the five o'clock bell, pick up their pay checks, and leave the whole business behind them. Work, for so many, becomes a necessary evil. They go at it grudgingly, at best resignedly. It is hard to fault them; the stressful conditions and uncertainty under which so many workers labor force them into an adversarial relationship with their occupations and employers. — Robert Dykstra

Necessary Evil Quotes By Pope Pius IX

Atheism in legislation, indifference in matters of religion, and the pernicious maxims which go under the name of Liberal Catholicism are the true causes of the destruction of states; they have been the ruin of France. Believe me, the evil I denounce is more terrible than the Revolution, more terrible even than The Commune. I have always condemned Liberal Catholicism, and I will condemn it again forty times over if it be necessary. — Pope Pius IX

Necessary Evil Quotes By Huey Long

You will find that you cannot do without politicians. They are a necessary evil in this day and time. You may not like getting money from one source and spending it for another. But the thing for the school people to do is that if the politicians are going to steal, make them steal for the schools. — Huey Long

Necessary Evil Quotes By Reinhard Bendix

Reason is a necessary instrument, to be used for good or evil, but it has no moral qualities. — Reinhard Bendix

Necessary Evil Quotes By Wendy Higgins

Patti told me that to truly love someone ,you must hold them in a open hand.That was how I needed to love Kai. It was necessary to uncurl my fingers and let him go — Wendy Higgins

Necessary Evil Quotes By Edmund Burke

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. — Edmund Burke

Necessary Evil Quotes By Fred Zinnemann

Dialogue is a necessary evil. — Fred Zinnemann

Necessary Evil Quotes By Tara Smith

Ethics is not a bitter wind in one's face, stinging a person with injunctions to act against his interest, but a breeze at one's back, aiding a person toward the achievement of life-enhancing values. Morality is not a burden to be resented or scrimped on, complied with only grudgingly. If Rand's theory of the nature of morality is correct, cutting moral corners amounts to cutting one's own throat. Far from being a necessary evil, ethics is a necessary ally, an indispensable tool for living. To the extent that a moral code accurately identifies a life-promoting course, morality is a tremendous benefactor. — Tara Smith

Necessary Evil Quotes By Albert Camus

Saint-Just, the contemporary of Sade, finally arrives at the justification of crime, though he starts from
very different principles. Saint-Just is, of course, the anti-Sade. If Sade's formula were "Open the prisons
or prove your virtue," then Saint-Just's would be: "Prove your virtue or go to prison." Both, however,
justify terrorism - the libertine justifies individual terrorism, the high priest of virtue State terrorism.
Absolute good and absolute evil, if the necessary logic is applied, both demand the same degree of
passion — Albert Camus

Necessary Evil Quotes By Laura Schlessinger

Psychology doesn't like to talk about evil. It likes to talk about bad childhoods. But I very much believe that some people are evil and motivation is not necessary for evil. — Laura Schlessinger

Necessary Evil Quotes By Jonathan Edwards

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God.
Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all. — Jonathan Edwards

Necessary Evil Quotes By Kristen Connolly

A lot of auditions are not fun; they're just a necessary evil, and, if you're lucky, you have a few moments that are fun. — Kristen Connolly

Necessary Evil Quotes By Simone Weil

The social order, though necessary, is essentially evil, whatever it may be. — Simone Weil

Necessary Evil Quotes By Ed Catmull

Failure isn't a necessary evil. In fact, it isn't evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new. — Ed Catmull

Necessary Evil Quotes By Joseph Heller

How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? — Joseph Heller

Necessary Evil Quotes By Kim Smith

The editing process is a necessary evil. I can write until the cows come home but it is all garbage until it gets edited. — Kim Smith

Necessary Evil Quotes By Margaret Mead

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good. — Margaret Mead

Necessary Evil Quotes By James Bovard

The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives. — James Bovard

Necessary Evil Quotes By Rick Riordan

She remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. Rome had slaves, some Southerners had argued, so why shouldn't we?
Annabeth shivered. She loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects. — Rick Riordan

Necessary Evil Quotes By H.P. Lovecraft

It is no longer necessary to preach sonorously of the sinful and deleterious effect of liquor on the human mind and body; the essential evil is recognised scientifically, and only the sophistry of conscious immorality remains to be combated. Brewers and distillers still strive clumsily to delude the public by the transparent misstatements of their advertisements, and periodicals of easy conscience still permit these advertisements to disgrace their pages; but the end of such pernicious pretension is not remote. The drinker of yesterday flaunted his voice before all without shame; the average drinker of today must needs resort to excuses. — H.P. Lovecraft

Necessary Evil Quotes By Wendell Phillips

Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed. — Wendell Phillips

Necessary Evil Quotes By Carolyn Wells

A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity. — Carolyn Wells

Necessary Evil Quotes By William Godwin

He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil. — William Godwin

Necessary Evil Quotes By David Mamet

The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment. — David Mamet

Necessary Evil Quotes By Alexander The Great

Now that the wars are coming to an end, I wish you to prosper in peace. May all mortals from now on live like one people in concord and for mutual advancement. Consider the world as your country, with laws common to all and where the best will govern irrespective of tribe. I do not distinguish among men, as the narrow-minded do, both among Greeks and Barbarians. I am not interested in the descendance of the citizens or their racial origins. I classify them using one criterion: their virtue. For me every virtuous foreigner is a Greek and every evil Greek worse than a Barbarian. If differences ever develop between you never have recourse to arms, but solve them peacefully. If necessary, I should be your arbitrator. — Alexander The Great

Necessary Evil Quotes By Margaret Thatcher

The right-of-centre parties still often compete with left-of-centre ones to proclaim their attachment to all the main programmes of spending, particularly spending on social services of one kind or another. But this foolish as well as muddled. It is foolish because left-of-centre parties will always be able to outbid right-of-centre ones in this auction - after all, that is why they are on the left in the first place. The muddle arises because once we concede that public spending and taxation are than a necessary evil we have lost sight of the core values of freedom. — Margaret Thatcher

Necessary Evil Quotes By Theodore Roosevelt

Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil ... — Theodore Roosevelt

Necessary Evil Quotes By Tana French

In my book, the media are a necessary evil: they live off the animal inside us, they bait the front pages with second-hand blood for the hyenas to snuffle up, but they come in useful enough that you want to stay on their good side. — Tana French

Necessary Evil Quotes By Doug Harvey

I've heard it said that umpires are necessary evil. Well, we are necessary, but we are not evil. We are hard-working and dedicated people whose primary interest is to make sure the game is played fairly. We are the integrity of the game. — Doug Harvey

Necessary Evil Quotes By Zack Love

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke) — Zack Love

Necessary Evil Quotes By Thom Yorke

Rock music is, is a necessary evil, like beating my children with penny loafers — Thom Yorke

Necessary Evil Quotes By Stacy Schiff

The most reckless volume on the subject, the Malleus Maleficarum, or Witch Hammer, summoned a shelf of classical authorities to prove its point: "When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil." As is often the case with questions of women and power, elucidations here verged on the paranormal. Weak as she was to devilish temptations, a woman could emerge dangerously, insatiably commanding. According to the indispensable Malleus, even in the absence of occult power, women constituted "a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment." The — Stacy Schiff

Necessary Evil Quotes By Lionel Suggs

War is like art. It paints a picture mixed with lies and truths in order to help one find something absolute. It brings out imagination. It brings out intelligence. It brings out illumination. The art is worth dying for. The struggle is worth the reward, because even if cause looks futile now, the idea behind it has the power to bring liberation. Although it can be considered a necessary evil, it is a remissible good. War is like art, for it paints a picture of truth. — Lionel Suggs

Necessary Evil Quotes By M. Scott Peck

If necessary, they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them. I define evil, then, as the exercise of — M. Scott Peck

Necessary Evil Quotes By Howard Zinn

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil ... — Howard Zinn

Necessary Evil Quotes By Lyn Nofziger

I believe you can divide the people in to two basic groups, those who believe government is a necessary good and those who believe it is a necessary evil, those who want government to take care of them, those who want government to leave them alone. — Lyn Nofziger

Necessary Evil Quotes By Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Mistakes and slips are a necessary evil part of our daily living. We learn through them all the time. Life is too broad for us to do everything so perfectly, but we must not justify our mistakes and slips when we know that we are far better than our mistakes! The best regret is to take a robust action in the right direction to prove how far better we are than our mistakes and slips. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Necessary Evil Quotes By Ingmar Bergman

The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world. — Ingmar Bergman

Necessary Evil Quotes By William Vickrey

Larger deficits are necessary and proper means to mitigate unemployment as the far greater evil in terms of human welfare. — William Vickrey

Necessary Evil Quotes By Swami Vivekananda

No doubt it is an evil to be bound by laws, but it is necessary at the immature stage to be guided by rules; in other words, as the Master used to say that the sapling must be hedged round, and so on. — Swami Vivekananda

Necessary Evil Quotes By Louis Antoine De Saint-Just

It is not enough, citizens, to have destroyed the factions, it is necessary now to repair the evil that they have done to the country. — Louis Antoine De Saint-Just

Necessary Evil Quotes By Rene Girard

Why does Jesus regard the Father and himself as the best model for all humans? Because neither the Father nor the Son desires greedily, egotistically. God "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and he sends his rain on the just and on the unjust." God gives to us without counting, without marking the least difference between us. He lets the weeds grow with the wheat until the time of harvest. If we imitate the detached generosity of God, then the trap of mimetic rivalries will never close over us. This is why Jesus says also, "Ask, and it will be given to you ... " When Jesus declares that he does not abolish the Law but fulfills it, he articulates a logical consequence of his teaching. The goal of the Law is peace among humankind. Jesus never scorns the Law, even when it takes the form of prohibitions. Unlike modern thinkers, he knows quite well that to avoid conflicts, it is necessary to begin with prohibitions. — Rene Girard

Necessary Evil Quotes By Jenna Brooks

Discard that old notion, that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Good people can't do nothing. — Jenna Brooks

Necessary Evil Quotes By Elizabeth Goudge

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity an not merely muddled through like an evil dream ... In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. (David Eliot, Chapter 4) — Elizabeth Goudge

Necessary Evil Quotes By C.S. Lewis

Of course, many acts which are sins against God are also injuries to our fellow-citizens, and must on that account, but only on that account, be made crimes. But of all the sins in the world, I should have thought homosexuality was the one that least concerns the State. We hear too much of the State. Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place. — C.S. Lewis

Necessary Evil Quotes By Edward McKendree Bounds

God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our children, just as far as God's ability, goodness and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil. — Edward McKendree Bounds

Necessary Evil Quotes By Peter Drucker

No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil. — Peter Drucker

Necessary Evil Quotes By Joseph Sobran

Thus does a 'necessary evil' become an idol. Maybe we're stuck with it. But do we have to worship it? — Joseph Sobran

Necessary Evil Quotes By Hannah Arendt

The fateful equating of power with violence, of the political with government, and of government with a necessary evil has begun. — Hannah Arendt

Necessary Evil Quotes By J.D. Robb

politics?" "A necessary evil that on rare occasions works without corruption, abuse, and waste. — J.D. Robb

Necessary Evil Quotes By Richard Whately

Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil. — Richard Whately

Necessary Evil Quotes By Charles Bukowski

There were no judgments to be made, yet out of necessity one had to select. Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary. The kinder ones fucked better, really, and after you were around them a while they seemed beautiful because they were. — Charles Bukowski

Necessary Evil Quotes By Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one's life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Necessary Evil Quotes By Percy Bysshe Shelley

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Necessary Evil Quotes By Richard Dawkins

As Einstein said, 'If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. ' Michael Shermer, In The Science of Good and Evil, calls it a debate stopper. If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would 'commit robbery, rape, and murder', you reveal yourself as an immoral person, 'and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you'. If, on the other hand, you admit that you would continue to be a good person even when not under divine surveillance, you have fatally undermined your claim that God is necessary for us to be good. — Richard Dawkins

Necessary Evil Quotes By Arthur Miller

[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer. It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without 'sky'. Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes. The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon - such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas. — Arthur Miller

Necessary Evil Quotes By Anthony De Mello

The law is an expression of God 's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously. "Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant . — Anthony De Mello

Necessary Evil Quotes By Niccolo Machiavelli

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Necessary Evil Quotes By Elie Wiesel

Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible. It is incumbent upon us to remember the good we have received, and the evil we have suffered. — Elie Wiesel

Necessary Evil Quotes By Henry Charles Lea

To understand fully the causes which drove so many thousands into schism and heresy, leading to wars and persecutions, and the establishment of the Inquisition, it is necessary{6} to cast a glance at the character of the men who represented the Church before the people, and at the use which they made, for good or for evil, of the absolute spiritual despotism which had become established. In — Henry Charles Lea

Necessary Evil Quotes By Rand Paul

The Founders never intended for Americans to trust their government. Our entire Constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible. — Rand Paul

Necessary Evil Quotes By John Milton

Promiscuous reading is necessary to the constituting of human nature. The attempt to keep out evil doctrine by licensing is like the exploit of that gallant man who thought to keep out the crows by shutting the park gate. — John Milton

Necessary Evil Quotes By Willem De Kooning

I see the canvas and I begin ... It's a necessary evil to get into the work, and it's pretty marvelous to be able to get out of it. — Willem De Kooning

Necessary Evil Quotes By Gail O'Grady

I think the paparazzi is a necessary evil ... and if ya don't like it, and ya don't want to do this, go to Iowa and do some community theatre. It's all about self-promotion, and it's not always the fun part of it. — Gail O'Grady

Necessary Evil Quotes By Lech Walesa

After the war, Germany fully confessed to all its dirty tricks. It's necessary to is draw a line under the past, even if people did something evil. Until we do, wounds won't heal. — Lech Walesa

Necessary Evil Quotes By F.H. Bradley

The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil. — F.H. Bradley

Necessary Evil Quotes By Alyssa Reyans

The doctor's words made me understand what happened to me was a dark, evil, and shameful secret, and by association I too was dark, evil, and shameful. While it may not have been their intention, this was the message my clouded mind received. To escape the confines of the hospital, I once again disassociated myself from my emotions and numbed myself to the pain ravaging my body and mind. I acted as if nothing was wrong and went back to performing the necessary motions to get me from one day to the next. I existed but I did not live. — Alyssa Reyans

Necessary Evil Quotes By William Gibson

A middleman's business is to make himself a necessary evil. — William Gibson

Necessary Evil Quotes By Lisa Kessler

Only I knew the truth - I didn't enjoy killing. It was nothing more than a necessary evil in my world.

My sin was being very good at it. — Lisa Kessler