Joyce Cary Quotes

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

I think it sits quite happily with me, the condition of being an actor. I see some people getting quite eaten up with it, with the insecurities. There are times when I long for continuity and stability, but I also love the idea of not knowing what I'll be doing next - or even if I'm going to work.

What I love about my work is the variety and not knowing what's coming next, and being able to embrace something for a period of time and know something new is going to follow.

The Chinese say, 'It's good to live in interesting times.'

The apple which tempts my characters is the one that will remove the knowledge of good and evil. I suppose it's something of a reversal of the conventional Eden story: Freedom of thought is perhaps the greatest good, and needs to be fought for and sacrificed for.

There's no map to human behaviour.

I know that human beings are capable of anything.

The world is changing so quickly, it's hard to get anything right for long.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue?

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is the willingness to think.

I suspect that here theists and atheists would agree: Human beings have within them the ability to choose evil or good. We wake up each day facing the age-old struggle of good and evil. In some situations, mental illness clouds our judgment.

If our wondrous kindness is evidence for God, is our capacity for great evil proof of the Devil?

The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

We animals live life in all its glorious uncertainty. Why do politicians think they can control events?

The good thing about people really is their iffy-ness and dodginess, isn't it?

Liberalism, on the other hand, regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situations, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

Liberalism regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situation, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

There is no rational creature which is not capable both of good and evil

When you empower people you sign up for a life of uncertainty and change.

Give up security as an ideal. Anyone who promises security is misbranding his political, social, and economic goods ... If you insist on being cheated, buy gold bricks or perpetual motion machines. It is now clear that if you live at all, you will live dangerously, not only during the instant crisis but for all our lives

I never want anything to be too predictable.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.