Good vs. Evil Quotes

"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe." ~ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. ~ East of Eden by John Steinbeck A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward. ~ A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin "All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone." ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens "But recollect from this time that all good things perverted to evil purposes, are worse than those which are naturally bad. A thoroughly wicked woman, is wicked indeed. When religion goes wrong, she is very wrong, for the same reason." ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens I am an average good Christian, when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you–which is a great comfort–are, in this respect, much the same as I am. ~ The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins She was beginning to understand that evil is not absolute, and that good is often an occasion more than a condition. ~ Pierre And His People by Gilbert Parker With no power to annul the elemental evil in him, though readily enough he could hide it; apprehending the good, but powerless to be it; a nature like Claggart's surcharged with energy as such natures almost invariably are, what recourse is left to it but to recoil upon itself and like the scorpion for which the Creator alone is responsible, act out to the end the part allotted it. ~ Billy Budd by Herman Melville "I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them--none. That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way." ~ Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens "Are there, infinitely varying with each individual, inbred forces of Good and Evil in all of us, deep down below the reach of mortal encouragement and mortal repression -- hidden Good and hidden Evil, both alike at the mercy of the liberating opportunity and the sufficient temptation?" ~ No Name by Wilkie Collins