Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Behind the man is the Tree of Life, bearing twelve fruits, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is behind the woman; the serpent is twining round it.

It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world.

The apple which tempts my characters is the one that will remove the knowledge of good and evil. I suppose it's something of a reversal of the conventional Eden story: Freedom of thought is perhaps the greatest good, and needs to be fought for and sacrificed for.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

That free will was demonstrated in the placing of temptation before man with the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree which would give him a knowledge of good and evil, with the disturbing moral conflict to which that awareness would give rise.

I believe there's things all around us that make you do good things and some that make you do bad things.

And there never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got into for eating it.

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

I think that fiction is an excellent place for us to struggle with questions of good and evil, and humanity and inhumanity.

All my books deal with the effect of intent upon action, how our understanding of good and evil depends heavily on context.

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

Biblical references about knowledge and good and evil often get tangled up.

If you look at the Bible and you look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we all know who sinned first. Ladies, do you have to eat everything?

And they will return one day knowing the miracle of the heavens and of all the world. God knew what he was doing when he drew their attention to the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If he hadn’t wanted them to eat it, he would never have mentioned it.

Without the Christian explanation of original sin, the seemingly silly story of Adam and Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there was no explanation of conflict. At all.

Good and evil exist only in terms of the happiness or suffering they create in ourselves and others

I sincerely believe that we not only have the right to know what is good and what is evil; we have the duty to acquire that knowledge if we hope to assume responsibility for our own lives and those of our children. Only by knowing the truth can we be set free.

Man has always been dexterous at confusing evil with good. That was Adam's and Eve's problem, and it is our problem today. If evil were not made to appear attractive, there would be no such thing as temptation.

I'm very interested in good and evil and the moral natures of people.

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

Temptation has been here ever since the Garden of Eden.

The right actions undertaken for the right reasons generally lead to good outcomes over time.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.