The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.
The wise man avoids evil by anticipating it.
Your own transformation will enable you to withdraw so completely from evil that you contribute to it by not one word, one thought, or one breath. This healing process is like recovering your soul.
It is not enough for us to restrain from doing evil, unless we shall also do good.
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
When a government faces an evil that might be avoided, the usual pattern is to first debate whether or not the evil is real or imagined; then determine how evil it really is; then is it an appropriate function of government to avoid it? Then what are the alternative ways to avoid it? Then what are the costs to avoid it? And finally, is the benefit of avoiding the evil worth the cost? In those cases where it is, it is by this time too late to avoid the evil and discussions shift to ameliorating the evil.
See {630440} for an earlier English human relations statement of the idea.
Against specious appearances we must set clear convictions, bright and ready for use. When death appears as an evil, we ought immediately to remember that evils are things to be avoided, but death is inevitable.
Be this our wall of brass, to be conscious of having done no evil, and to grow pale at no accusation.
So far any one shuns evils, so far as he does good.
Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? What sinews are those? - A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.
The non-doing of any evil, the performance of what's skillful, the cleansing of one's own mind: this is the teaching of the Awakened.
Avoid evil, particularly if they're attractive members of the opposite sex.
It is always fair sailing, when you escape evil.
Life is short and the time of death is uncertain; so apply yourself to meditation. Avoid doing evil, and acquire merit, to the best of your ability, even at the cost of life itself. In short: Act so that you have no cause to be ashamed of yourselves and hold fast to this rule.
The resolution to avoid evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.
Everybody has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have no experience of what it means to be good.
When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil.
I became fascinated with the concept of speak no, see no, hear no evil. And - and the actual depiction of three wise monkeys. And I began collecting it over the years. And I kind of figured that I might be the - the fourth monkey, the feel no evil monkey.
God has plans for you and His plans are for good because God Himself is good. He can neither think nor do evil.
The majority of mankind would seem to be beguiled into error by pleasure, which, not being really a good, yet seems to be so. So that they indiscriminately choose as good whatsoever gives them pleasure, while they avoid all pain alike as evil.
The great and important duty which is incumbent on Christians, is to guard against all appearance of evil; to watch against the first risings in the heart to evil; and to have a guard upon our actions, that they may not be sinful, or so much as seem to be so.
When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
My mother went to a school called 'The Club of the Three Wise Monkeys'. And my grandmother, my father's mother, had a gold charm for her made with the speak no, see no, hear no evil monkeys. And I was fascinated by that charm. I'd sit in my mother's lap and play with it all the time.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us to get away from the devil as soon and as fast as we can.
These are people that don't want to protect the American people... [T]hey will do anything, spend all the time and resources they can, to avoid confronting evil.