Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

The true knowledge of good and evil arouses disturbances of the mind

Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.

The lesser evil is also evil.

Everyone spends their lives trying to balance their world between good and evil.

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

It's the dualistic ways of looking at things that produces the evil.

Morality without a sense of paradox is mean.

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune.

The evils of mortals are manifold; nowhere is trouble of the same wing seen.

Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books - but it is terrible when one has to live it.

If you've ever liked an artist or someone who then does something or is accused of something extremely corrupt, and your moral conscience won't allow you to accept that artist, the truth is then that creates a void in your life. Because then something you loved was taken from you.

Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.

Most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

Where great evils lie on all sides, it is very difficult to follow the best counsel.

If this isn’t good versus evil, what is?

As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is, I believe, the worst of all snares.

I will continue to keep fighting sucking the marrow out of life as life sucks the marrow out of me.

Every nation necessarily inhabits a morally compromised space. All too often our ideals seem to be held to ransom by what we believe, rightly or wrongly, to be objective reality.

There exist some evils so terrible and some misfortunes so horrible that we dare not think of them, whilst their very aspect makes us shudder; but if they happen to fall on us, we find ourselves stronger than we imagined, we grapple with our ill luck, and behave better than we expected we should.

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives.

Perhaps this is the only real evil left.

Evil comes not amiss if it comes alone.

Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.

You would not easily guess All the modes of distress Which torture the tenants of earth; And the various evils, Which like so many devils, Attend the poor souls from their birth.