Tess Gerritsen Quotes

Being evil is something that only humans are capable of.

Maybe the devil in human beings isn't the reflection of the devil, perhaps the devil is only a reflection of the savagery and brutality of our kind. Maybe what we've done is create the devil in our own image

For Aristotle, goodness is a kind of prospering in the precarious affair of being human.

Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human.

What we call 'evil' doesn't necessarily deserve any kind of respect or understanding, by any means; it just deserves an acknowledgement of its complexity so we can better understand it - so we can help prevent it.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

Evil does not grow out of the soil, nor does mischief spring from the ground. Only man is born to do mischief, just as sparks fly upward.

It is absurd to suppose, if this is God’s world, that men must always be selfish barbarians.

I don't know how to play evil.

Everythings a choice. Nobody's born good. Nobody's born evil. It's always a choice.

I like to believe that most human beings go about things with a point of view that they're just doing what they feel like they need to do at that time. Sometimes people make bad decisions, but it's not evil, not malicious.

And does man simply choose evil, or does he create it?

"Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."

Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower than the brute.

If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots.

Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.

There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Sin and Crime, Free Will and the like delusions made to excuse God for damning men and to excuse men for crucifying each other.

Evil is not any superhuman, but it is HUMAN.

Evil exists in us all, Torak. Some fight it. Some feed it. That's how it's always been.

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

Left to himself, man is half beast and half devil.

Man's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.