Top 100 Quotes About Necessary Evil
#1. I think it takes a lot of trickery to keep up with the media and its perception of you. I don't know if I have it in me most of the time to care. The music is made first, and the interviews or photos to keep it alive come later as a necessary evil, I suppose.
Jack White
#2. The law is an expression of God 's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously. "Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant .
Anthony De Mello
#3. politics?" "A necessary evil that on rare occasions works without corruption, abuse, and waste.
J.D. Robb
#4. Yeah, I don't think you can live anywhere else
it's such a great city [New York]. L.A. is kind of a necessary evil, but man, I love going back to New York.
Will Arnett
#5. Controversy, though always an evil in itself, is sometimes a necessary evil.
Richard Whately
#6. Governments are a necessary evil. Just because something is necessary doesn't mean you should pretend that it is a good thing. Governments cannot do good, it is against their nature; it is beyond their ability; so curb them and curb the evil that they do.
Chris Northern
#7. For me, Spotify is not even a necessary evil. It helps me do what I want to do.
Ed Sheeran
#8. For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.
Annie Besant
#9. I see the canvas and I begin ... It's a necessary evil to get into the work, and it's pretty marvelous to be able to get out of it.
Willem De Kooning
#10. The daisies and buttercups nodded in the breeze, like skinny-necked old ladies listening to dance music.
What if necessary evil had an opposite? This is what it would be. This unnecessary good.
For the first time in days, Mo smiled.
Tricia Springstubb
#12. The Founders never intended for Americans to trust their government. Our entire Constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible.
Rand Paul
#13. Thus does a 'necessary evil' become an idol. Maybe we're stuck with it. But do we have to worship it?
Joseph Sobran
#14. There's no way we could take cars off the planet and not have our society fall apart. So they're a necessary evil, in that sense.
Lindsay Wagner
#15. Woman is a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.
Saint John Chrysostom
#16. The fateful equating of power with violence, of the political with government, and of government with a necessary evil has begun.
Hannah Arendt
#18. Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil, or simply a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the belief that the entire society was one organic whole left no room for those who didn't want to behave, let alone "evolve.
Jonah Goldberg
#19. I had a therapist once tell me to "sit with my shit," and I believe that to be a necessary evil of being constantly disappointed.
Chelsea Handler
#20. The State is said by some to be a necessary evil; it must be made unnecessary.
Benjamin Tucker
#21. You will find that you cannot do without politicians. They are a necessary evil in this day and time. You may not like getting money from one source and spending it for another. But the thing for the school people to do is that if the politicians are going to steal, make them steal for the schools.
Huey Long
#22. Phineas didn't really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered authority the necessary evil against which happiness was achieved by reaction, the backboard which returned all the insults he threw at it.
John Knowles
#23. No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.
Peter Drucker
#24. The existence of poverty in the US should not be accepted as a necessary evil or insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#25. Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine
#26. Any communitys arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.
Lois McMaster Bujold
#27. I think the paparazzi is a necessary evil ... and if ya don't like it, and ya don't want to do this, go to Iowa and do some community theatre. It's all about self-promotion, and it's not always the fun part of it.
Gail O'Grady
#28. THE TEACHER AS A NECESSARY EVIL. Let us have as few people as possible between the productive minds and the hungry and recipient minds! The middlemen almost unconsciously adulterate the food which they supply. It is because of teachers that so little is learned, and that so badly.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#29. A middleman's business is to make himself a necessary evil.
William Gibson
#30. Doubtless there are times when controversy becomes a necessary evil. But let us remember that it is an evil.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
#31. When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left?
Matthew Scully
#32. The law's a necessary evil
we canna be doing without it
but do ye not think it a poor substitute for conscience?
Diana Gabaldon
#33. Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
#34. I believe you can divide the people in to two basic groups, those who believe government is a necessary good and those who believe it is a necessary evil, those who want government to take care of them, those who want government to leave them alone.
Lyn Nofziger
#35. While in some quarters it is felt that the critic is just a necessary evil, most serious-minded, decent, talented theater people agree that the critic is an unnecessary evil.
Jean Kerr
#36. It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
Margaret Mead
#37. Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile.
Christy Mathewson
#38. Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.
Wendell Phillips
#40. The editing process is a necessary evil. I can write until the cows come home but it is all garbage until it gets edited.
Kim Smith
#41. In my book, the media are a necessary evil: they live off the animal inside us, they bait the front pages with second-hand blood for the hyenas to snuffle up, but they come in useful enough that you want to stay on their good side.
Tana French
#42. I've heard it said that umpires are necessary evil. Well, we are necessary, but we are not evil. We are hard-working and dedicated people whose primary interest is to make sure the game is played fairly. We are the integrity of the game.
Doug Harvey
#43. A lot of auditions are not fun; they're just a necessary evil, and, if you're lucky, you have a few moments that are fun.
Kristen Connolly
#44. The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.
Franz Kafka
#45. Only I knew the truth - I didn't enjoy killing. It was nothing more than a necessary evil in my world.
My sin was being very good at it.
Lisa Kessler
#46. Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence ... politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
Bernard Crick
#47. Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.
P. J. O'Rourke
#48. Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Mark Twain
#49. As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil.
Robert Southey
#50. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil ...
Howard Zinn
#51. Compression is a necessary evil. The artists I know want to sound competitive. You don't want your track to sound quieter or wimpier by comparison. We've raised the bar and you can't really step back.
Butch Vig
#52. Marriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil.
Menander
#53. When all else fails, you can always damn yourself with a necessary evil, for the greater good.
Simon R. Green
#54. I used to think the press was a necessary evil and now I don't think it is. I think it's something you choose.
Daniel Craig
#55. The golden watch has become the other end of golden handcuffs. We now look at steady jobs as less of a goal and more of a necessary evil. They aren't fun; they simply fund our lives.
Jon Acuff
#56. The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.
F.H. Bradley
#57. I hate dealing with the press. But I think it is a necessary evil.
Amy Carter
#58. In order to forgive reason for the evil it has wrought on the majority of men, we must imagine for ourselves what man would be without his reason. 'Tis a necessary evil.
Nicolas Chamfort
#59. It is said that government is a necessary evil, but it is far more evil than it is necessary.
James Cook
#60. Rock music is, is a necessary evil, like beating my children with penny loafers
Thom Yorke
#63. Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody's got to pay for them so they're a necessary evil.
Michael Bloomberg
#64. Failure isn't a necessary evil. In fact, it isn't evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.
Ed Catmull
#65. The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives.
James Bovard
#66. A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity.
Carolyn Wells
#67. Love is a necessary evil that traps you in illusory gossamer
Samreen Ahsan
#68. War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Jimmy Carter
#69. Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity? Arthur C. Clarke, author
George Washington
#71. Our heart is a garden, which the good God has given us to cultivate, and we must always be aware of the weeds that grow without observation. It is necessary that we should unceasingly apply ourselves to the cultivation of the good and the extraction of the evil which might take root.
Christoph Von Schmid
#72. It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet it is necessary to shew the evils which we desire to be removed.
Samuel Johnson
#73. That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil.
Lyn Nofziger
#74. All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.
Walter Raleigh
#75. It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness.
Thornton Wilder
#76. Promiscuous reading is necessary to the constituting of human nature. The attempt to keep out evil doctrine by licensing is like the exploit of that gallant man who thought to keep out the crows by shutting the park gate.
John Milton
#77. It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift
#78. The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Joseph Conrad
#79. Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#80. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke)
Zack Love
#81. There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
W. Somerset Maugham
#82. When we teach people that suspending moral judgments is a virtue, the necessary outcome is moral horror.
Peter Boghossian
#83. it's at least possible that God is wise enough to foresee that we need some pain for reasons which we may not understand but which he foresees as being necessary to some eventual good. Therefore, he's not being evil by allowing that pain to exist.
Lee Strobel
#84. A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good.
Voltaire
#85. Psychology doesn't like to talk about evil. It likes to talk about bad childhoods. But I very much believe that some people are evil and motivation is not necessary for evil.
Laura Schlessinger
#86. God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our children, just as far as God's ability, goodness and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil.
Edward McKendree Bounds
#87. Even though we are peripheral to the slavery, our action is necessary to overcome a horrific evil.
Nicholas D. Kristof
#88. We should never judge anyone; a 'wicked' action which we may see as 'evil', may be necessary for the greater good. Where would the story of Christ be without Judas? His actions were ultimately good; a part of the plan.
Robert S. Jepson Jr.
#89. The only thing necessary for the continuance of evil is for a good man to do nothing.
Edmond Burke
#90. To abolish war it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to abolish patriotism it is necessary first to understand that it is an evil. Tell people that patriotism is bad and most will reply, 'Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but mine is good patriotism.'
Leo Tolstoy
#91. No misery to be saved from . . . So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's
Austin Fischer
#92. All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.
Carlton Smith
#93. Edmund Burke provided the answer in 1795: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Dean Koontz
#94. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.
Edmund Burke
#95. Discard that old notion, that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Good people can't do nothing.
Jenna Brooks
#96. The Christian cannot be indifferent to this world which God made and loves. Yet how can he be other than against it in its evil and sin and hopelessness? Both positions are necessary, and both at the same time, and without reserve.
Ronald Gregor Smith
#98. Larger deficits are necessary and proper means to mitigate unemployment as the far greater evil in terms of human welfare.
William Vickrey
#99. He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.
William Godwin
#100. Reason is a necessary instrument, to be used for good or evil, but it has no moral qualities.
Reinhard Bendix
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