Jacqueline Novogratz Quotes

Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.

It's easy to point out the evil in other people, but that can be found in all of us. That selfishness, that is something we all have in us. Sometimes you are successful at dealing with it, and sometimes you are not.

I really wanted to be nasty and mean and bad. It's so much easier than being the good girl.

Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long.

As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.

What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man different from self?

We all have them, those parts of us that are the greatest parts of us and the worst parts of us. Sometimes we're put in circumstances and bad choices are made.

Sometimes you have to confront your demons and sometimes even let them loose to genuinely find a place where you can gain some understanding.

I'd prefer to be good, but I'm not always. I struggle.

There is good and there is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with the good.

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego.

Once you get in a position where your rent is taken care of and you do have a job, you really get to deal with yourself and really become one with yourself. And you wake to your mind every day. That's your best friend and your worst enemy - your own brain.

We like Batman - we understand him, we suffer with him. On the other hand, we want to be Superman. But they're conflicting philosophies. Let's bring them together in one movie and see how we, as an audience, wrestle with our inner demons.

Anyone can identify with those moments in life where circumstances or people inform us that we've strayed from the path of our better nature and intentions. We know what that's like, and we resist it - so as not to feel like we're bad people.

I think all of us have a hero and a villain in us.

I've always believed in people's capacity for goodness. I still believe that people are good. What I'm not so trusting about anymore is their relationship to their own goodness.

It's ironic, but until you can free those final monsters within the jungle of yourself, your life, your soul is up for grabs.

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

We have a demon, we have an angel inside, within our souls, and you just play with it, and sometimes the evil part of you wins the battle, in a very important decision, or in a bedtime, with your lover. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

You've got to know what your 'thing' is, and you've got to call it a 'thing,' whether it's meanness, nastiness, un-forgiveness, arrogance, ego, resistance, rebelliousness or defiance. Everybody's got a 'thing,' and once you call your 'thing' a 'thing,' we can give it a place to be or dismiss it.

Everyone has monsters and demons within themselves. They're metaphors for the human condition.

Everybody has a hero and a villain within themselves. So it depends upon you to be a hero or a villain. If you show humanity, it will give you satisfaction.

The characters I've played that I like the most are people that have a lot of obstacles. They have a lot of bad things going on. They're seeking to do something good amidst all the detritus around them, and they're aware of how badly they've screwed it up. That kind of self-awareness is tragic.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.