#wickedness

Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion. ↗

— Lucretius

#heights #men #religion #such #which

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope. ↗

— Niccolo Machiavelli

#act #always #arranges #evil #free

In morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil. ↗

— Anna Jameson

#begins #either #ends #evil #fanaticism

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#doctor #lawyer #mankind #sees #stupidity

Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together. ↗

— Laurence Sterne

#more #occasions #other #put #sin

This also is a part of the Church's teaching, that the world was made and took its beginning at a certain time, and is to be destroyed on account of its wickedness. ↗

— Origen

#also #beginning #certain #certain time #church

The proposition that we should encourage wickedness and violence by exposing one side of the face to blows because we have been beaten on the other is too great an absurdity. ↗

— Thomas Mellon

#beaten #because #been #blows #encourage

She also said the wicked people needed love as much as good people and were much better at it. ↗

— Alasdair Gray

#wickedness #love

The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts--and let's face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field--is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good--and we all know how rare that is... ↗

— Jasper Fforde

#detestable #dilutes #evil #expert #good

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#attraction