Exodus 20:16: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Lydia M. Child [1852]: “It is right noble to fight with wickedness and wrong; the mistake is in supposing that spiritual evil cab be overcome by physical means.”
John H. Holmes [1926]: “Evil is here in the world, not because God wants it or uses it here, but because He knows not how at the moment to remove it; or knowing, has not the skill or power to achieve His end. Evil, therefore, is a fact not to be explained away, but to be accepted; and accepted not to be endured, but to be conquered. It is a challenge neither to our reason nor to our patience, but to our courage.:
Charles Kimball [2002]: “THe Five Warning Signs of Corruption in Religion: absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishing the “ideal” time, the end justifies any means, declaring holy war……..One or more of these five signs always precedes any instance of religiously sanctioned evil. Knowledge of such corruption is invaluable in today’s world, yet it is not sufficient in itself. Whether on is a true believer or a die-hard secularist, it remains necessary to take the next step from knowledge of these factors that predict when religion becomes evil to a clear understanding of how religion can remain true to its authentic sources and a force for positive change.” {from Kimball’s book: “When Religion Becomes Evil”}
Hosea 10:13: “You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity; you have eateb the fruit of lies>”
Martin Luther King, Jr [1963[: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
Isaiah 48:22: “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.”
Margaret Mead [1978}: “It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lessor evil, but one must never label a necessary evil is good.”
Matthew 7:17-18: “Every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”
Reinhold Niebuhr [1959]: “In the collective life of man, at least, most evil arises be3cause finite men involved in the flux of time pretend that they are not so involved. They make claims of virtue, of wisdom, and of power which are beyond their competence as creatures. These pretensions are the source of evil, whether they are expressed by kings and emperors or by commissars and revolutionary statesmen.”
Proverbs 14:21: “He that despises his neighbor sins.”
Theodore
roosevelt[1900]: “No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.”
Psalm 12:8: “The wicked walk about freely when the vilest men are exalted.”
Adlai E. Stevenson [1952]: “Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse>”
Psalm 141:11: “Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity.”
Henry D Thoreau [1854]: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
Philip Zimbardo [2007[: “Let’s begin with a definition of evil. Mine is simple, psychologically based one: Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others – or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf. In short, as my friend and mentor Irving Sarnoff says in his aphorism, ‘Evil is knowing better but doing worse.'” from: Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect Understanding How Good people Turn Evil”}
again, credit for quotations from: “The Harper Book of American Quotations,” by G. Carruth and E, Ehrlich, hopefully obvious, the Christian Bible}
With Justice For All 