Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Human beings are capable of great good, but also of the basest evil.

It isn’t hard to find evil in this world. Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.

Who isn't fascinated by evil?

Nobody is all good or all bad.

There are bad people and there are bad corporations. Just as there are good people and good corporations. That might seem too black and white, but what can I tell ya?

You know, we all can do bad, and we all can do good.

I don't think anybody's all good or all bad.

Heroes aren't supposed to do bad things. That's what villains are for. So either the good supersedes the bad, or the bad makes it impossible to remember the good. We don't like it when such duality exists in one person. We don't want to know our heroes are human.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.

Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.

What 'Twilight Zone' did was show we all have a great capacity for good and evil.

What makes 'The Wire' a beautiful story is how true to life it is. In other shows, you have a good guy and a bad guy. In 'The Wire,' bad guys are trying to be good, good guys are doing bad. You have real life. The people who do bad get bad things done to them.

Men are not altogether bad or altogether good.

Good and evil appear to be joined in every culture at the spine.

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...

The world in all doth but two nations bear- The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.

I believe it's true that there's good and evil in everyone and it's a constant struggle to have your better angels prevail.

Goodness is, so to speak, itself; badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.

Evil conquered?' said Gwydion. 'You have learned much, but learn this last and hardest of lessons. You have conquered only the enchantments of evil. That was the easiest of your tasks, only a beginning, not an ending. Do you believe evil itself to be so quickly overcome? Not so long as men still hate and slay each other, when greed and anger goad them. Against these even a flaming sword cannot prevail, but only that portion of good in all men's hearts whose flame can never be quenched.

Every person professes to love good and hate evil, but in his actions his real preferences emerges.

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

The problem was, you couldn't have one without the other. There couldn't be a bad guy unless there was a good guy to create the standard. And there couldn't be a good guy until a bad guy showed just how far off the path he might stray.

The history of the world shows that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing was done, man did it.

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.

What is evil?-Whatever springs from weakness.