Michael Lerner Quotes

'Evil' is quite a blanket term. People aren't the demonic characters we would like them to be sometimes.

Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.

And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone or that's an evil one because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.

I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually not. In other words, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "Yuck, yuck, yuck, I'm gonna be evil." I think even like Saddam Hussein or Hitler would wake up and say, "I think it's going to be a good day. I'm gonna do some really important work." And given their definition of good, they went out and did horrible things.

You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.

Most people believe they have a clear idea of what's right and wrong. Many say they know how they'll act, or how they'll handle an extreme situation. But to be honest, no one knows. Not reallyBecause none of us truly knows what we'll do when the circumstances become so overwhelming and complex that we can't even tell right from wrong.

I always had an interest in seeing people within their environments.

I don't think anyone sets out to be the evil villain.

People do bad things, but that doesn't mean they don't have other colors or qualities.

None of us wants to be judged by our worst act on our worst day, and we consistently judge Burr for that. He was not a perfect man, but he's not a villain. He's a dude, just a guy.

You don't have people who are monsters and only do bad. There's good and bad for everybody. It's all a spectrum.

I personally feel that no human is a hero or a villain. All of us have our grey sides, and that is why grey interests me: because it's more human, more life-like.

Everyone has his reasons.

People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.

There's really no "bad" people; there's just humans who are doing the best they can to figure life out. It's hard! We can all relate to that.

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.

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it... It is as great presumption to send our passions upon God's errands, as to palliate them with God's name... We are too ready to retailiate, rather than forgive, or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us. Let us try then what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel.

You're not a bad person. But you sometimes do bad things. You know what that makes you? Human.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

I don't believe in "original sin." I don't believe in "guilt." I don't believe in villains or heroes - only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents. This is so simple I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm sure it's true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that's why I don't understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.

There are no bad people, there are people with insufficient information to make appropriate decisions.

There are experts in little things but there are no experts in big things. There are experts in this fact and that fact but there are no moral experts.

Keep in mind, Eragon, that no one thinks himself a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.

All humans are storytellers with their own unique point of view. When we understand this, we no longer feel the need to impose our story on others or to defend what we believe. Instead we see all of us as artists with the right to create our own art.

I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: from the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.