Henry Adams Quotes

Good men do the most harm.

The idea that we cause harm by doing what we perceive to be the right thing, that's another theme that interests me. Because most people don't intend to cause harm, they cause harm by doing the right thing - in their mind.

People don't necessarily do evil deeds because they want to; people happen to do something with horrible consequences even if they meant to be kind.

Wizard's Second Rule The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

I didn't have evil intentions, but I guess I did have power.

I tend to look for the good in bad people and the bad in good people, to make them human. 'Cause I don't think that people generally are that black and white. Maybe in movie-land they can be... but that isn't necessarily all there is.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

History isn't just the story of bad people doing bad things. It's quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong.

Human beings are made up of many different values, and sometimes those values are in tension with each other.

Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.

The older I get the more I realize there's no real good guys or real bad guys, and I'm curious about how the good guys got good and how the bad guys got bad.

I don't think anyone sets out to do something bad, it's just that it's very difficult.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

When you start off with them being the bad guys and you being the good guys, once you've made that one decision, you don't have to think anymore, if you're in the military. From that point on, anything goes. From that point on, you're capable of anything, even atrocities. Because you've made a decision a long time ago that you're on the right side. You don't keep questioning, questioning, questioning

The best men are not consistent in good--why should the worst men be consistent in evil?

There are the good and bad and every morrally ambiguous shade in between.

I don't believe that pure evil exists, personally.

With any villain, you have to see things from their point of view and understand that they think what they're doing will make the world a better place.

There are people who do what they believe is right, but as they say, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.'

There's this artistic drive or something in me that impels me to sympathize with villains, but it's maybe not a great impulse as someone who wants to do activism as well.

When you think you're a really good person, you're actually capable of doing some real harm to people, either knowingly or unknowingly. It's the big little lie that we all live in.

People love talking about the banality of evil and the fact that ordinary people do bad things. I actually want to stay away from that.

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Half of the results of a good intentions are evil; half the results of an evil intention are good.

What is forgotten, however, is that many times the Good we create leads to Evil that will destroy us.