Man's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.
Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.
Whoever takes it upon himself a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety.
Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
When we would think of God, how many things we find which turn us away from Him, and tempt us to think otherwise. All this is evil, yet it is innate.
There is the seed of all sins--of the vilest and worst of sins--in the best of men.
Men have never been good, they are not good and they never will be good.
I have long held firm to my suspicion that some people are just evil. In some cases I'll concede it seems as though it is thrust upon someone who had little real hope of avoiding it. However tragic that reality, the simple fact remains that it is more important to protect the rest of society for as long as it remains a danger to them.
You might get some serial killers who are born with a chip missing, but for the most part I don't think anyone is born bad.
There's a point at which when I start to know a man well--this isn't true of women--I wonder whether there's something in him that's evil. Something that's pure and can't be touched. This quality of evil may be related to the quality of artistry, for an artist has the same characteristics.
I really have to wonder who or what made Daddy become this way. Babies aren't born cruel or filled with sick desire. Evil is not intrinsic. It's fashioned.
We are all born marked for evil.
I was born with the devil in me,' [Holmes] wrote. 'I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.
