Lao Tzu Quotes

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

If power made one evil, then God would be the Devil.

There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.

It was easy to be the bad guy throughout.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

In 'Remember the Night,' love reformed her and corrupted him, which gave us the finely balanced moral that one man's meat is another man's poison.

All things truly wicked start from an innocence.

Biological science is a tool, and like all tools, it can be used for good or bad. It’s like a knife blade with three edges: The edge that cuts, the dull edge that does not cut well and the edge that cuts what you do not want it to.

People love talking about the banality of evil and the fact that ordinary people do bad things. I actually want to stay away from that.

There's not a lot of pure evil in the world, but it's amazing how little it takes to do great damage.

Goodness is weakness, pleasantness is poisonous, serenity is mediocrity and kindness is for losers. The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts – and let’s face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field – is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by almost anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good.

Even the best things ill used become evils; and, contrarily, the worst things used well prove good.

There is much said about the wickedness of doing evil that good may come. Alas! there is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

Ill wéede growth fast.

Culture which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the devil sticks.

We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now.

Satan often paints sin with virtue's colors.

Where princes are concerned, a man who is able to do good is as dangerous and almost as criminal as a man who intends to do evil.

Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit, which is directly received.

What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.

The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes-naked greed and misconceived philanthropy.

Badness is only spoiled goodness.

In Paradise, as always: that which causes the sin and that which recognizes it for what it is are one. The clear conscience is Evil, which is so entirely victorious that it does not any longer consider the leap from left to right necessary.