Paul Greengrass Quotes

When we report stories, we don't just want to talk to people who did the right thing. We want to talk to people who did the wrong thing.

People can do bad things for good reasons, or for what they think are good reasons.

I don't believe in villains - just people who channel their energy in the wrong way.

There are movies where we are interested in seeing people's lives without agreeing with what they're doing.

If the myth of pure evil is that evil is committed with the intention of causing harm and an absence of moral considerations, then it applies to very few acts of so-called 'pure evil' because most evildoers believe what they are doing is forgivable or justifiable.

It's easy to show terrible people's behavior on screen, and we all just kind of nod and go, 'Isn't that terrible.' It's more interesting when you can show terrible behavior in the interest of something good.

I was fascinated that everybody in the story thinks that they're in the right.

We are people in circumstances who make choices that we think are right at the time.

I realized crime isn't the only way you can judge people. People can do good things, and people can do bad things. It's probably better to understand people for the good things they do.

Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention.

One must be especially wary of an Administration that seems to feel that what it judges to be a good end, always justifies any means.

That which is morally wrong will never be politically right.

My general philosophy of playing bad guys, which I've sort of done, you know, half the time is, you know, very few people who we view as bad guys get out of bed and think, 'What evil, terrible thing am I going to do today?' Most people see their motivations as justified - as, you know, justifying whatever they do.

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

The idea that people do very bad things for sometimes very good reasons, feels reasons.

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals.

I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.

All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse or omission.

people do terrible things, sometimes, for the best reasons.

Half of the results of a good intentions are evil; half the results of an evil intention are good.

Our ability to turn off empathy for specific kinds of humans and then use faulty logic to justify our beliefs is messily sociopathic.

There's always got to be room for what you might call benign corruption. Nobody blames a man who steals food to feed his starving children, but on the other hand, somebody who picks up a badge and takes an oath to serve and protect; we do expect a certain level of essential honesty.

Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.