W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

A lot of people don't believe there's evil. If there's good in this world, then you're being intellectually dishonest, if you believe there's a good power, you've also got to believe there's an evil power, too. There are physical laws that are in place.

I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake. I believe that God enables all things to work for the greater good.

Some people turn from God because they cannot understand how a good God can permit evil in the world.

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

The good news is there's no devil. The bad news is there's no heaven. There's nothing.

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a little golden tail.

If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing].

For, were it not good that evil things should also exist, the omnipotent God would almost certainly not allow evil to be, since beyond doubt it is just as easy for Him not to allow what He does not will, as for Him to do what He will.

Often does good come out of evil. But that is God's, not man's plan.

To say that God permits evil in the world may not be pleasing to the ear. But if He is held responsible for the good, it follows that He has to be responsible for the evil too.

Why can't God just defeat the devil and get rid of evil? It's the same reason the comic book character can't get rid of his nemesis; then there's no story.

I do not believe that a world without evil, preferable in order to ours, is possible; otherwise it would have been preferred. It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted. The combination of all the tendencies to the good has produced the best; but as there are goods that are incompatible together, this combination and this result can introduce the destruction of some good, and as a result some evil.

Death must be an evil and the gods agree; for why else would they live for ever?

Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.

Since God is the highest good, he would not allow any evil to exist in his works unless his omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.

Allah Himself has ordered that any person, any nation, any empire whose evil outweighs its good, there is a force in our universe that moves that individual, that nation, that empire out of existence.

To justify God's ways to man.

Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness... and perhaps even Satan - Satan, in spite of himself - somehow serves to work out the will of God.

Hell is not evil; it's a place where evil gets punished. Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But Hell is morally good, because a good God must punish evil.

If God rewards us on earth for good deeds—the Old Testament suggests it’s so, and the Puritans certainly believed it—then maybe Satan rewards us for evil ones.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

The Bible talks about your spirit being immortal, that you were created for existence beyond your physical body. Well, that's no different from Scientology! I don't think that because the word someone uses for spirit is thetan that the definition becomes any different.

. . .It is the Law that while Evil, unopposed, may accomplish terrible deeds, the power of Good can never be overthrown when opposed to Evil. . .