Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Quotes

I wanted to write a book about people who have the best intentions and think - really, truly think - that they're doing the right thing. And then they realize that when those ideals come knocking at their windowsill, a lot of times they will suddenly disavow those ideals.

Bad people doing bad things is not interesting. What I find interesting is good people doing bad things.

No one may do evil that good may come.

'Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are.

I think I wear my hypocrisy on my sleeve. I would never say I'm not a complete hypocrite.

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.

There are people in positions of power that are righteous about what they believe: they're enacting out evil principles, but they don't believe that that's what they're doing.

We live in a world where everyone thinks they do the right thing, so they are entitled to do the wrong thing. So ends can justify the means.

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

People will justify whatever for a good cause.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

I feel really ambiguous about the psychology of people trying to do good in the world.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.

I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

Everybody is a hypocrite. You can't live on this planet without being a hypocrite.

A little hypocrisy is better than losing.

… he must deceive, misrepresent, leave false impressions … and trust to charm, loyalty and the result to make up for it…. A great man cannot be a good man.

It's very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, 'This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.' And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.

Good people do bad things.

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.

It is one of those problems of human nature, which may be noted down, but not solved; - although Ralph felt no remorse at that moment for his conduct towards the innocent, true-hearted girl; although his libertine clients had done precisely what he had expected, precisely what he most wished, and precisely what would tend most to his advantage, still he hated them for doing it, from the very bottom of his soul.

There's a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it's a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don't want to know are best at.