QUOTATION: Evil

Pain and sadness are not the greatest evil; worse is judging evil to be good and not rejecting it.

-- St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: God Will Triumph

Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death, do not have the final say.

--Pope St. John Paul II

QUOTATION: Never Deal with the Devil

In a Faustian bargain, the House always wins.

--Mark Shea

QUOTATION: Evil

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

-- Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Power

Those who begin worshipping power soon worship evil.

--C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: Evil

Only one principle will give you courage, that is the principle that no evil lasts for ever, nor indeed for very long.

--St. Epicuris

QUOTATION: Evil

If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil and He is to be blamed for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is, but it is just as real.

--Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Mercy

It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.

--Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings

QUOTATION: Don't Get Used to It

We are in danger! As a society we have, little by little, become used to hearing and seeing distasteful news every day through the media.  What's worse, we have also become accustomed to seeing it and feeling it around us without calling forth any response, or at most, a superficial and noncommittal comment.  The wound is in the street, in the neighbourhood, in our homes, but like deaf and blind people, we live with the violence that kills, destroys families and neighbourhoods, gives rise to wars and conflicts in so many places, and we look at it as one more video.  The suffering of so many peaceful and innocent people has ceased to shock us; disregard for the rights of persons and whole peoples, poverty and misery, the rule of corruption, the drug assassin, forced child prostitution: it all becomes commonplace, and we pay without asking for a receipt, although sooner or later we are going to get the bill.

All of these realities, and many more, are not silent. They cry out to each and every one of us and speak to us of our limitations, our weakness, our sin-- in spite of the fact that we have gotten used to it.

Becoming used to something tells us seductively that there is no sense in trying to change it, that we cannot do anything in the face of it, that it's always been that way, and that, anyway, we'll survive it. We give up our opposition, allowing things 'to be what they are'-- or at least what some have decided they are.

--Pope Francis (Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio), Lenten Gesture of Solidarity, 2010

QUOTATION: Why the Love of Money the Root of All Evil

The Apostle...states that covetousness is the root of all sins (1 Tim 6:10). For in that passage he clearly speaks against those who, because they "will become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil . . . for covetousness is the root of all evils." Hence it is evident that he is speaking of covetousness as denoting the inordinate desire for riches. Accordingly, we must say that covetousness, as denoting a special sin, is called the root of all sins, in likeness to the root of a tree, in furnishing sustenance to the whole tree. For we see that by riches man acquires the means of committing any sin whatever, and of sating his desire for any sin whatever, since money helps man to obtain all manner of temporal goods, according to Ecclesiastes 10:19: "All things obey money": so that in this desire for riches is the root of all sins.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 84, Art. 1.

QUOTATION: Goodness

Evil is not the only thing that is contagious; goodness is as well.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: Why Bad Things Happen

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.

--C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: Evil

Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think.

--Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Defeating Evil

It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.

--Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings

QUOTATION: Mortal Sin

If all the calamities which have existed in the world since the creation, and all the sufferings of Hell, were put into one side of a scale, and but one mortal sin into the other, it would outweigh all these evils, for it is incomparably greater. This is a truth which must be strongly felt and constantly remembered. I know that the world judges differently, but the darkness which reigns in this second Egypt cannot change the real character of sin.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: Good is Stronger than Evil

Is it not evident that all that are for you are stronger than all that are against you? Is not God stronger than the devil? Is not grace superior to nature? Are not the good angels more powerful than the fallen legions of Satan? Are not the pure and ineffable joys of the soul far more delightful than the gross pleasures of sense and the vain amusements of the world?

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: The Power of Evil Men

The power of evil men lives on the cowardice of the good.

--St. John Bosco

QUOTATION: Fighting Evil

We must not believe the Evil One when he tells us that there is nothing we can do in the face of violence, injustice and sin.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Responding to Evil

When confronted with an abyss of evil, the only response is an abyss of love.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: Evil is No Argument Against God's Existence

The evil in the world must not make me doubt the existence of God. There could be no evil if there were no God. Before there can be a hole in a uniform, there must be a uniform; before there is death, there must be life; before there is error, there must be truth; before there is a crime, there must be liberty and law; before there is a war, there must be peace; before there is a devil, there must be a God, rebellion against whom made the devil.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Wartime Prayer Book