The Evil Within Us Quotes & Sayings

There is a place within each of us where we cannot hide from the truth, where virtue sits as judge. To admit the truth of our actions is to go before that court, where process is irrelevant. Good and evil are intents, and intent is without excuse. — R.A. Salvatore

The evil I'm talking about lives in us all. It takes hold in an individual, in private lives, within a family, adn then it's children who suffer most. And then, when teh conditions are right, in different countries, at different times, a terrible cruelty, a viciousness against life erupts, and everyone is surprised by the depth of hatred within himself. Then it sinks back and waits. It's something in our hearts. — Ian McEwan

I'm not a god or the God, but we're all God and we're all potentially divine - and potentially evil. We all have everything within us and the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if you look hard enough you'll see it. — John Lennon

There is a crucial omission. The front page should display the words of the Nuremberg judgment of prominent Nazis - words that must be repeated until they penetrate general consciousness: Aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." And alongside these words there should be the admonition of the chief prosecutor for the United States, Robert Jackson: "The record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well. — Noam Chomsky

Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean
for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once
and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters. — Ayn Rand

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

Grace within us will employ prayer, and faith, and hope, and love, to cast out the evil; it takes unto it the "whole armour of God," and wrestles earnestly. These two opposing natures will never cease to struggle so long as we are in this world. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It is perhaps not the Church and all that it stands for that some fear so, but instead the demons of humanity that lurk within, tainting its Holy walls with their evil and their lust and their malice.

And what if that window into our own souls wasn't just to show us our reflections, the good and bad of who we are, but instead the reflection of the whole world around us, and how we see that, in all its entirety of good and evil. — Ross Turner

There is a god in every single one of us. And there is evil in every single one of us. The true battle between good and evil is fought within. — Anonymous

No matter how an individual views Satan, whether they believe that he is a real character or that he is just the product of literary scholars and imaginations, no one can deny that each one of us has an aspect of the devil within us. By studying the character and nature of Satan, we learn about ourselves; and the more we know about ourselves, the better we can fight our own personal demons - metaphorical or otherwise - in order to create a better tomorrow — Nwaocha Ogechukwu

The future is neither ahead nor behind, on one side or another. Nor is it dark or light. It is contained within ourselves; its evil and good are perpetually within us. — Loren Eiseley

You say you cannot love God; but it strikes me that if you rightly consider who and what He is, you cannot help it. He is your father, your best friend: every blessing, everything good, pleasant, or useful, comes from Him; and everything evil, everything you have reason to hate, to shun, or to fear, comes from Satan- HIS enemy as well as ours. And for this cause was God manifest in the flesh, that He might destroy the works of the Devil: in one word, God is love; and the more of love we have within us, the nearer we are to Him and the more of His spirit we possess. — Anne Bronte

True Christian fortitude consists in strength of mind, through grace, exerted in two things; in ruling and suppressing the evil and unruly passions and affections of the mind; and in steadfastly and freely exerting and following good affections and dispositions, without being hindered by sinful fear or the opposition of enemies ... Though Christian fortitude appears in withstanding and counteracting the enemies that are without us; yet it much more appears in resisting and suppressing the enemies that are within us; because they are our worst and strongest enemies and have greatest advantage against us. The strength of the good soldier of Jesus Christ appears in nothing more than in steadfastly maintaining the holy calm, meekness, sweetness, and benevolence of his mind, amidst all the storms, injuries, strange behaviour, and surprising acts and events of this evil and unreasonable world. — Jonathan Edwards

Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us? The — Ruta Sepetys

But I will tell you in all honesty that there is no Deity or Messiah, no Jesus or Muhammad, no angel or mythical spirit who can save you. Not even Buddha can save you, even if he or any of the other spirits wished it with all of their might, for your only salvation, if there is any, lies within you and you alone. Each of us has the potential for good as well as evil; it is whatever circumstances we find ourselves in and what choices we make in life which really takes us down one or the other path. — Andrew James Pritchard

There is nothing evil but what is within us; the rest is either natural or accidental. — Philip Sidney

Too many Christians become bitter and angry in the conflict. If we descend into hatefulness, we have already lost the battle. We must cooperate with God in turning what was meant for evil into a greater good within us. This is why we bless those who would curse us: It is not only for their sakes but to preserve our own soul from its natural response toward hatred. — Francis Frangipane

Intolerance lies at the core of evil. Not the intolerance that results from any threat or danger. But intolerance of another being who dares to exist. Intolerance without cause. It is so deep within us, because every human being secretly desires the entire universe to himself. Our only way out is to learn compassion without cause. To care for each other simple because that 'other' exists. — Menachem Mendel Schneerson

The evil we do, Monsieur, is within us; it does not come from circumstance. — Emmuska Orczy

Knowledge itself is a neutral tool that can be used for good or evil. Wisdom, in contrast, always directs us toward happiness. The task of education must be to stimulate and unleash the wisdom that lies dormant in the lives of all young people. This is not a forced process, like pressing something into a preformed mold, but rather drawing out the potential which exists within. — Daisaku Ikeda

Balance comes not only from the principal ability to discover equilibrium amid all the opposing forces of the universe, but also from the ability to recognize and harness them. The cosmos itself is a collection of all the forces that have ever existed throughout space and time. Light and dark, good and evil, the divine and the diabolical, sinner and saint, and every other set of conflicting energies that saturates the universe - these are the lifeblood that courses through us and animates our actions. It's the flow and even collision of these forces and energies that generates life itself. The history of human civilization is just another testament to this, depicting contrasts within humanity itself. For every Gandhi, there's a Hitler. For every movement bred in hate that grows and has an impact over time, there's a righteous one that counteracts and contrasts with it. It's his friction and subsequent balance between opposing forces that lays the foundation of our ongoing existence. — Deepak Chopra

Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore. — Edgar Allan Poe

Both men and angels were given the highest gift in the universe, that of free will. We have the power of choice. Evil resides within the problem of choice. It is free will that convicts us. We are guilty of being evil because we can choose good. Free will is the very foundation of love, and the cornerstone of evil. — Joseph B. Lumpkin

This prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. — William Wordsworth

Within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In every believer's heart there is a constant struggle between the old nature and the new. The old nature is very active, and loses no opportunity of plying all the weapons of its deadly armoury against newborn grace; while on the other hand, the new nature is ever on the watch to resist and destroy its enemy. Grace within us will employ prayer, and faith, and hope, and love, to cast out the evil; it takes unto it the "whole armour of God," and wrestles earnestly. These two opposing natures will never cease to struggle so long as we are in this world. The battle of "Christian" with "Apollyon" lasted three hours, but the battle of Christian with himself lasted all the way from the Wicket Gate to the river Jordan. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity - the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.
But if that is too dire , let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom. — Steven Erikson

In this life, the proper way of living is to make use of both joy and suffering. They are both merely stimuli that the world presents to us. So by blending them skillfully within you, you can use them in a completely different way. If you want to be steeped in evil, you mustn't forget good. — Fuminori Nakamura

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others. In keeping silent about evil, and burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

We human beings cause monstrous conditions, but precisely because we cause them we soon learn to adapt ourselves to them. Only if we become such that we can no longer adapt ourselves, only if, deep inside, we rebel against every kind of evil, will we be able to put a stop to it ... while everything within us does not yet scream out in protest, so long will we find ways of adapting ourselves, and the horrors will continue. — Etty Hillesum

No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. — Plato

Darkness dwells within even the best of us. In the worst of us, darkness not only dwells but reins. — Dean Koontz

When we realize a constant enemy of the soul abides within us, what diligence and watchfulness we should have! How woeful is the sloth and negligence then of so many who live blind and asleep to this reality of sin. There is an exceeding efficacy nad power in the indwelling sin of believers, for it constantly inclines itself towards evil. We need to be awake, then, if our hearts would know the ways of God. Our enemy is not only upon us, as it was with Samson, but it is also in us. — John Owen

There will always be those who mean to do us harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves. — James T. Kirk

Every man on earth is sick with the fever of sin, with the blindness of sin and is overcome with its fury. As sins consist mostly of malice and pride, it is necessary to treat everyone who suffers from the malady of sin with kindness and love. This is an important truth, which we often forget. Very often we act in the opposite manner: we add malice to malice by our anger, we oppose pride with pride. Thus, evil grows within us and does not decrease; it is not cured - rather it spreads — John Of Kronstadt

And in every one of us, there's a war going on. It's a civil war. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there's something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It's going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There's a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us ... There's a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it. — Martin Luther King Jr.

People deal with their shadow side in a number of ways, the most common way being to find outside enemies and point to them, demonizing them and blaming them for long lists of perceived evils. This strategy often does a very effective job of helping us avoid that which lurks within us. Politicians and radio talk-show hosts and pastors can become very skilled in this, constantly pointing out the darkness and evil and twisted ways of others to avoid dealing with the doubts and insecurities and questions they bear in their own bones. — Rob Bell

A true recognition of God's sovereignty will avow God's perfect right to do with us as He wills. The one who bows to the pleasure of the Almighty will acknowledge His absolute right to do with us as seemeth Him good. If He chooses to send poverty, sickness, domestic bereavements, even while the heart is bleeding at every pore, it will say, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right! Often there will be a struggle, for the carnal mind remains in the believer to the end of his earthly pilgrimage. But though there may be a conflict within his breast, nevertheless, to the one who has really yielded himself to this blessed truth there will presently be heard that Voice saying, as of old it said to the turbulent Gennesaret, "Peace be still"; and the tempestuous flood within will be quieted and the subdued soul will lift a tearful but confident eye to Heaven and say, "Thy will be done. — Arthur W. Pink

There is a little furnace within every heart that burns pain. It is formed by a masonry of scars as tick by tick the tireless mechanics of life strip the innocence bestowed upon us at birth. There are some in whom life builds the furnace small and controllable, a passionate heat to burn off the losses, the harsh words and petty disappointments, leaving us cleaner for it. There are others. There are those whose innocence is assaulted early and with such brutality, that it goes beyond all the boundaries of deities and angels to stray into the world of unfettered evil. They build their furnaces differently. — Robert E. Dunn

There is only one power which can from within undermine egoism at the root, and really does undermine it, namely love, and chiefly sexual love. The falsehood and evil of egoism consists in the exclusive acknowledgement of absolute significance for oneself and in the denial of it for others. Reason shows us that this is unfounded and unjust, but simply by the facts love directly abrogates such an unjust relation, compelling us not by abstract consciousness, but by an internal emotion and the will of life to recognize for ourselves the absolute significance of another. Recognizing in love the truth of another, not abstractly, but essentially, transferring in deed the centre of our life beyond the limits of our empirical personality, we by so doing reveal and realize our own real truth, our own absolute significance, which consists just in our capacity to transcend the borders of our factual phenomenal being, in our capacity to live not only in ourselves, but also in another. — Vladimir S. Soloviev

The nature of evil, the nature of it, it exists. It exists and I think within us we have the tools. If we have the will, we can combat it. I think the power is within us and it lies in our own conceptualization of God and positivity and compassion and love. — Vera Farmiga

As Hamlet said to Ophelia, "God has given you one face, and you make yourself another." The battle between these two halves of identity...Who we are and who we pretend to be, is unwinnable. "Just as there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to every person. One that we reveal to the world and another we keep hidden inside. A duality governed by the balance of light and darkness, within each of us is the capacity for both good and evil. But those who are able to blur the moral dividing line hold the true power. — Emily Thorne

The basic cause of all our difficulties is immaturity. That's why I talk so much about peace within ourselves as a step toward peace in our world. If we were mature, war would not be possible and peace would be assured. In our immaturity we do not know the laws of the universe, and we think evil can be overcome by more evil. One symptom of our immaturity is greed, making it difficult for us to learn the simple lesson of sharing ... — Peace Pilgrim

This age is truly crooked, perverse, and adulterous; it is full of fornication and immorality. People talk about immorality without one bit of shame. Who can stand in such a generation? Not one of us is able to stand. We all have a fallen nature within us, the same evil nature that all men have. We need grace. We must come to the throne of grace boldly and say, Lord, I am here. I need Your grace. I am not coming to ask You to give me good things. I am coming to find grace to meet my need. Lord, I cannot go to work or to school without Your presence. Lord, I cannot go to a department store without Your presence. Lord, I need You to stand with me. Come to be my strength. Lord, uphold me and sustain me. — Witness Lee

The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God. — Gregory David Roberts

Self-love makes us deceive ourselves in almost all matters, to censure others, and to blame them for the same faults that we do not correct in ourselves; we do this either because we are unaware of the evil that exists within us, or because we always see our own evil disguised as a good. — Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

There is good and evil within all of us, and I enjoy searching to bring that out through my music. I like it that there are questions brought out by my music. People must look inside themselves for the answers — Marilyn Manson

To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. — Victor Hugo

For the person who is grounded in the timeless truth of the universe, there is no life and no death. He or she can experience eternal joy without being limited by the definitions of good and evil. The essence of Oneness always exists within us. — Ilchi Lee

For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?
A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys. — Seneca.

There is evil in all of us, and it is the mark of a man how he defies the evil within. — David Gemmell

Without constant restoration we are not ready for the perpetual assaults of hell, or the stern afflictions of heaven, or even for the strifes within. When the whirlwind shall be loosed, woe to the tree that has not sucked up fresh sap, and grasped the rock with many intertwisted roots. When tempests arise, woe to the mariners that have not strengthened their mast, nor cast their anchor, nor sought the haven. If we allow the good to grow weaker, the evil will surely gather strength and struggle desperately for the mastery over us; and so, perhaps, a painful desolation, and a lamentable disgrace may follow. Let us draw near to the footstool of divine mercy in humble entreaty, and we shall realize the fulfillment of the promise, Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As we rely on God, and trust his Spirit to mold us in his image, true hope takes shape within us, "a hope that does not disappoint."We can literally become better persons because of suffering. Pain, however meaningless it may seem at the time, can be transformed. Where is God when it hurts? He is in us - not in the things that hurt - helping to transform bad into good.We can safely say that God can bring good out of evil; we cannot say that God brings about the evil in hopes of producing good. — Philip Yancey

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Christ, for Nietzsche as for Tolstoy, is not a rebel. The essence of His doctrine is
summed up in total consent and in nonresistance to evil. Thou shalt not kill, even to prevent killing. The
world must be accepted as it is, nothing must be added to its unhappiness, but you must consent to suffer
personally from the evil it contains. The kingdom of heaven is within our immediate reach. It is only an
inner inclination which allows us to make our actions coincide with these principles and which can give
us immediate salvation. Not faith but deeds - that, according to Nietzsche, is Christ's message. From then
on, the history of Christianity is nothing but a long betrayal of
this message. The New Testament is already corrupted, and from the time of Paul to the Councils,
subservience to faith leads to the neglect of deeds. — Albert Camus

[Christ's] goodness is still a rebuke to our badness; His purity still shows up our impurities; His sinlessness still reveals our sinfulness; and unless we allow [Jesus] to destroy the evil within us, the evil within us still wants to destroy Him. This is the conflict of the ages. — Billy Graham

We live in the midst of an evil world, and see few with us, and many against us. We carry within us a weak heart, too ready at any moment to turn aside from the right way. We have near us, at every moment, a busy devil, watching continually for our halting, and seeking to lead us into temptation. Where shall we turn for comfort? What shall keep faith alive, and preserve us from sinking in despair? There is only one answer. We must look to Jesus. We must think on His almighty power, and His wonders of old time. We must call to mind how He can create food for His people out of nothing, and supply the needs of those who follow Him, even in the wilderness. And as we think these thoughts, we must remember that this Jesus still lives, never changes, and is on our side. — J.C. Ryle

The greatest evils, are from within us; and from ourselves also we must look for the greatest good. — Jeremy Taylor

In unison, they recited an ancient rhyme.
"With one blue eye to rule the sky,
An eye of brown controls the ground;
Magic swirls within our souls,
Cryptic, mystic, spiritualistic,
To protect the weak from evil's effect,
Elements guide us, ever bind us.
A band of witches scattered wide
From Warlock Morpheus we must hide. — Vonnie Davis

The border between good and evil passes not outside of us but within us — Pope Francis

Suffering, sin, and evil are no longer located in God's will, but are understood as arising within a finite, open, developmental, and future-oriented creation. They are dealt with by the power of God's love revealed in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God's answer to the problem of woundedness and wickedness is not to show us now or in the eschaton how they fit into God's design or mosaic, but to show us how God overcomes the brokenness and maliciousness of the creation now and in the eschaton through the redemptive power of the cross and resurrection. Divine power is rethought as the suffering and transforming power of Jesus' cross and resurrection, not as the omnipotent power of the timeless will of God. Incarnation, instead of immutability, defines God's will and way. God is the suffering and transforming God. — Tyron Inbody

The Law cuts into the core of the evil, it reveals the seat of the malady, and informs us that the leprosy lies deep within. — Charles Spurgeon

An artist has an obligation to tell the truth. [ ... ] that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters. (And the heroes too). Each of us has within himself the capacity for great good, and great evil. — George R R Martin

Even in the darkest and most cruel person, there is still a kernel of good. And within the most perfect champion, there is darkness. The question is, will one give in to the dark or the light? It's something we decide with every choice we make, every day that we exist. What might not be evil to you could be evil to someone else. Knowing this makes us powerful even without magic. — Morgan Rhodes

Have we not all, amid life's petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible? Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings, and feel it near,
And just within our reach? It was. And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret,
And now live idle in a vague regret.
But still our place is kept, and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late:
No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been.
Since Good, though only thought, has life and breath,
God's life
can always be redeemed from death;
And evil, in its nature, is decay,
And any hour can blot it all away;
The hopes that lost in some far distance seem,
May be the truer life, and this the dream. — Adelaide Anne Procter

Once we become conscious, even dimly, of the Atman, the Reality within us, the world takes on a very different aspect. It is no longer a court of justice but a kind of gymnasium. Good and evil, pain and pleasure, still exist, but they seem more like the ropes and vaulting-horses and parallel bars which can be used to make our bodies strong. Maya is no longer an endlessly revolving wheel of pain and pleasure but a ladder which can be climbed to consciousness of the Reality. — Adi Shankaracarya

The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! — Mordechai Anielewicz

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. — Eric Hoffer

Sin is not confined to the evil things we do. It is the evil within us, the evil which we are. — Karl Barth

we have all, at some time or another, been guilty of mercilessness. Our own evil is a fact we often choose to ignore. Evil is not just "out there" but is the shadow Carl Jung described as lurking within every human. Whether we like it or not, it is our legacy, part and parcel of the human package. To step outside of our comfort zones and admit this takes courage, but without this sobering recognition we're more likely to lose our capacity for compassion, humility and forgiveness. If we lose our awareness of this side of our own nature, we risk becoming slaves to our own dark side. What goes unacknowledged in us has a tendency to grow larger.
Tenderness and compassion are qualities we must cultivate and never take for granted. This alone would make the world a better place by far. We — Adele Von Rust McCormick

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either
but right through every human heart
and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Alas, our fundamental experience is duality: mind and body, freedom and necessity, evil and good, and certainly world and God. It is the same with our protest against pain and death. In the poetry I select I am not seeking an escape from dread but rather proof that dread and reverence can exist within us simultaneously. — Czeslaw Milosz

The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth, are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good. — George Eliot