Richard Dawkins Quotes

Our rulers do wrong from choice and right from necessity.

Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.

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

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

Science, as illustrated by the printing press, the telegraph, the railway, is a double-edged sword. At the same moment that it puts an enormous power in the hands of the good man, it also offers an equal advantage to the evil disposed.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

I believe in a higher power and I believe in good and bad, right and wrong. You sleep in the bed you make.

If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance.

Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human duty. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than physics.

Of course you can use the products of science to do bad things, but you can use them to do good things, too.

Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality waiting to be shaped.

Daja doesn't exactly need to be tested on whether she's honorable or not." "Doesn't she? Don't all of you? This is your first taste of the things which may come from your being powerful mages. People will offer you gold, status, even love. I want to know how you will react. If want to know if your teachers will release greedy, thoughtless monsters into the world.

If you are picking the lesser of two evils, you are still picking Evil.

Computers are not good or bad; they are powerful.

If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual's responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician's responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. Michael Ignatieff, a former professor at Harvard and contributing writer for the magazine, is a member of Canada's Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need.

But magic is neither good nor evil. It is a tool, like a knife. Is a knife evil? Only if the wielder is evil.

The difference between God and the devil is in nothing except in unselfishness and selfishness. The devil knows as much as God, is as powerful as God; only he has no holiness that makes him a devil. Apply the same idea to the modern world: excess of knowledge and power, without holiness, makes human beings devils.

Rationality tied to moral decency is the most powerful joint instrument for good that our planet has ever known.

Whenever power is used for evil, it becomes diabolical; it must be used for good only.

Their fate rested entirely on me. I could save them by telling the truth. I could destroy them by lying. No one should have that much power.

You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act.

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

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.