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Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

Evil exists to glorify the good. Evil is negative good. It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good. What is evil to one at one time, becomes good at another time to somebody else.

— Mencius

It's better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

— Stephen King

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what's evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We're less sure about what is good. There's sort of good, good enough, could be better - but absolute good is a little harder to define.

— Madeleine Albright

The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.

— John Locke

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

— Marcus Aurelius

There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

— Samuel Butler

Good and evil do not exist for me any more. The fear of evil is merely a mass projection here and on Earth.

— Hans Bender

I've learned a lot about good and evil. They are not always what they appear to be.

— Charles Van Doren

Evil is an attack against human spiritual development and enlightenment. All evil, badness, neurosis - it has one motive and one motive only, which is to destroy - to destroy your chance of arising above yourself.

— Vernon Howard

✗Opposing Perspectives

Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is what we perceive as a value.

— Konrad Lorenz