All Quotes By Tag: Evil
“SEPTEMBER 1, 1939I sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of deathOffends the September night.Accurate scholarship canUnearth the whole offenceFrom Luther until nowThat has driven a culture mad,Find what occurred at Linz,What huge imago madeA psychopathic god:I and the public knowWhat all schoolchildren learn,Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.Exiled Thucydides knewAll that a speech can sayAbout Democracy,And what dictators do,The elderly rubbish they talkTo an apathetic grave;Analysed all in his book,The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.Into this neutral airWhere blind skyscrapers useTheir full height to proclaimThe strength of Collective Man,Each language pours its vainCompetitive excuse:But who can live for longIn an euphoric dream;Out of the mirror they stare,Imperialism’s faceAnd the international wrong.Faces along the barCling to their average day:The lights must never go out,The music must always play,All the conventions conspireTo make this fort assumeThe furniture of home;Lest we should see where we are,Lost in a haunted wood,Children afraid of the nightWho have never been happy or good.The windiest militant trashImportant Persons shoutIs not so crude as our wish:What mad Nijinsky wroteAbout DiaghilevIs true of the normal heart;For the error bred in the boneOf each woman and each manCraves what it cannot have,Not universal loveBut to be loved alone.From the conservative darkInto the ethical lifeThe dense commuters come,Repeating their morning vow;’I will be true to the wife,I’ll concentrate more on my work,’And helpless governors wakeTo resume their compulsory game:Who can release them now,Who can reach the dead,Who can speak for the dumb?All I have is a voiceTo undo the folded lie,The romantic lie in the brainOf the sensual man-in-the-streetAnd the lie of AuthorityWhose buildings grope the sky:There is no such thing as the StateAnd no one exists alone;Hunger allows no choiceTo the citizen or the police;We must love one another or die.Defenseless under the nightOur world in stupor lies;Yet, dotted everywhere,Ironic points of lightFlash out wherever the JustExchange their messages:May I, composed like themOf Eros and of dust,Beleaguered by the sameNegation and despair,Show an affirming flame.”
“People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.”
“To light a candle is to cast a shadow…”
“Knowledge is power. Power to do evil…or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.”
“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.”
“We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That’s all we know for sure. We can’t create a new species or a new world. That’s been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries . What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.”
“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”
“Looks like what drives me crazyDon’t have no effect on you–But I’m gonna keep on at itTill it drives you crazy, too.”
“Ich habe zu viel vom Leben erwartet, ich dachte, es wäre mir Glück und Heiterkeit schuldig. In Wirklichkeit bietet das Leben weder das Gute noch das Böse. Das Glück ist eine Frucht, die man in einer Seele anbaut und erntet. Man kann sie nicht von außen erlangen. Warum sollte ich verdrossen sein wie ein Kind, das kein Geschenk bekommen hat? Ich habe Jahre vor mir, um glücklich zu sein!”
“Today I finally recognise the mistake that almost became my downfall: I expected too much out of life. I thought it would owe me happiness and cheerfulness. In fact, life offers neither good nor evil. Happiness is a fruit you cultivate and harvest inside your soul. You can not receive it from the outside. Why should I be fretful like a child that has got no gift? I have years ahead to be happy.”
“Today I finally recognise the mistake that almost became my downfall: I expected too much out of life. I thought it would owe me happiness and cheerfulness. In fact, life offers neither good nor evil. Happiness is a fruit you cultivate and harvest inside your soul. You can not gain it from the outside. Why should I be fretful like a child that has got no gift? I have years ahead to be happy.”
“When you repay evil with evil, you become evil.”
“I care not whether a man is Good or Evil; all that I care Is whether he is a Wise man or a Fool. Go! put off Holiness, And put on Intellect; or my thund’rous hammer shall drive thee To wrath, which thou condemnest, till thou obey my voice.”
“live for life not the inverse,remember evil and live are the same word.”
“Good…if you’ve done things you aren’t proud of. It means you have a conscience.”