Edmund Burke Quotes

Evil prospers when good men do nothing.

For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.

Evil prevails when good people do nothing.

When evil men destroy, good men must build and bind.

I went to my son's graduation this weekend, and I heard a great quote I've never heard before from Albert Einstein. It was that the greatest danger to the world is not the bad people but it's the good people who don't speak out.

What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does.

In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.

Tolerating evil leads only to more evil. And when good people stand by and do nothing while wickedness reigns, their communities will be consumed.

Fighting for what is right is not always popular but is always necessary.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

I have no love for those who consider themselves 'good people' but stand idly by as the world crumbles around them. It's not enough to personally not do damage. If you're present as someone else destroys what's around you and you do nothing, you helped them.

Passivity is a tacit endorsement of evil we are too afraid to oppose actively.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

Evil will never be countered while good men do nothing.

Passivity is the same as defending injustice.

To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

Our duty is to stand up for those who do the right thing.

For evil to take place, the acts of a few people are not sufficient; the great majority also has to remain indifferent.

When you see corruption, when you see injustice, you speak up. You don't just shut up and say it's none of my business.

A time comes when silence is betrayal.

You either fight active evil or you accept it. Doing nothing is acceptance. There is no in-between.

There is nothing worse than doing nothing and saying nothing when your voice is needed.

That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.