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noun
Evil  n.  
1.
Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm; opposed to good. "Evils which our own misdeeds have wrought." "The evil that men do lives after them."
2.
Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence; wickedness; depravity. "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil."
3.
Malady or disease; especially in the phrase king's evil, the scrofula. (R.) "He (Edward the Confessor) was the first that touched for the evil."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Evil" Quotes from Famous Books



... the closest of all relations—that of a love well founded and equally shared—speech is half discarded, like a roundabout, infantile process or a ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two communicate directly by their presences, and with few looks and fewer words contrive to share their good and evil and uphold each other's hearts in joy. For love rests upon a physical basis; it is a familiarity of nature's making and apart from voluntary choice. Understanding has in some sort outrun knowledge, for the affection perhaps began with the acquaintance; and as it was not made like other ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... country-house to milk my flock: but to see with what fear I went forward, how often I looked behind me, how I was ready, every now and then, to lay down my basket, and run for my life; it would have made any one have thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had been lately most terribly frighted; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... waiters," Dory continued, "but those who stay in the hotels round here have sometimes an evil name." ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... zealously in those two reforms as far and as fast as a public opinion could be created or elicited to enforce them, and I can say from my own observation that each step of advance taken has been fruitful of all good and productive of no evil. Emancipation of the colored race in Missouri has been achieved in a most thorough manner, substantially achieved even before the war; and to-day the community is ripe for the declaration that all are created equal, and that there is no reason to exclude from any right, civil or political, on ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... adversities constrain us to call upon God's Name and to trust Him, yet were sin alone more than sufficient to train and to urge us on in this work. For sin has hemmed us in with three strong, mighty armies. The first is our own flesh, the second the world, the third the evil spirit, by which three we are without ceasing oppressed and troubled; whereby God gives us occasion to do good works without ceasing, namely, to fight with these enemies and sins. The flesh seeks pleasure and peace, the world seeks riches, favor, ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... American nation declared that this sort of thing was not to be tolerated in a Christian country, the Oneida Community held its own for over thirty years, during which period it seems to have produced healthier children and done and suffered less evil than any Joint Stock Company on record. It was, however, a highly selected community; for a genuine communist (roughly definable as an intensely proud person who proposes to enrich the common fund instead of to spunge on it) is superior to an ordinary joint stock capitalist ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw

... war does help to bring about a lasting peace in the world, it is idle to pretend that it will have been anything else but a monstrous experience of evil. If at the end of it we cannot bring about some worldwide political synthesis, unanimous enough and powerful enough to prohibit further wars by a stupendous array of moral and material force, then all this terrible year of stress and suffering ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... obtained for the States at this critical time, which was turned to good account and was of vital import for their constitutional development. The Leicestrian period, despite its record of incompetence and failure, had however the distinction of being the period which for good or for evil gave birth to the republic of the United Netherlands, as we know it in history. The curious, amorphous, hydra-headed system of government, which was to subsist for some two centuries, was in its origin the direct result of the confused welter of conflicting forces, which was the legacy of Leicester's ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... took place in the little room at Glasgow. The student appeared for the first time before his mother in his ministerial clothes. He wore the black silk hat, that was destined to become a terror to evil-doers in Thrums, and I dare say he was rather puffed up about himself that day. You would probably have ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... romance,—an afterthought, probably, of continuation to his unexpectedly successful first book,—we take the last paragraph of the prologue, which shows this. The veracious historian makes obtestation of the strict truth of his narrative, and imprecates all sorts of evil upon such as do not believe it absolutely. We cleanse our extract ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... will come," she replied, smiling at him. But as she left the room she sighed; had she really exorcised those evil spirits? or would they return again, with tenfold force? "remorse;" that was the word he used, this was the canker-worm that was robbing him of peace. "It is not easy for me to forgive even if the offender is my own flesh and blood." How sad it was ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... you are fond of Julie! She has a sincere attachment for your little girl, they play together like the happiest of creatures. Would you let the companion of your daughter pine away with despair? Misfortune is contagious! It brings evil on all around! ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac

... aimed at the highest? Have you, too, aspired and prayed? Have you looked upon evil unsullied? Have you ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... due subordination and loyalty, and the interests of the service, and the chances of beating those confounded French, if such conduct as Darley's was to be encouraged? (Poor Darley! he was past all evil effects of human ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... American Indians, who still remain under the influence of sorcery and empiricism, consider women in the light of impure and evil beings, and calculated to injure them. Among a few of the less rude nations this aversion is apparent in domestic life, in a certain unconquerable contempt of females. With the anthropophagi the feeling extends, fortunately, to their flesh, which is ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... a fresh start." He paused and wiped his brow, wet with the unusual exertion of this self-analysis. "I think a fellow ought to act always as if he was making the world. He ought to try not to put things in it that are going to make it an unpleasant or an evil world. We don't always do it; but we ought to try. Now if I were making a world, I wouldn't put a man in a penitentiary in it. Of course there's dangerous criminals." He glanced at Newmark a little anxiously. "I don't believe you're that. You're sharp and dishonest, and ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... too much of what is good; good turns to evil, sweet to sour. After many days of quiet calm the sea was covered with Ogokpegeak, a scum which is caused by sickness among the fish, and which is thrown off by them, for they suffer in still water. Then the fisherman can no longer look down into ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... said he did not fear the issue, as he had unbounded confidence in God, and the prayers of Sister Bourgeois, whom he familiarly styled the little St. Genevieve of Canada, and hoped through the efficacy of her prayers, that no evil would befall either the country or the Church. Canada was miraculously preserved at this time from the bristling guns of a formidable English fleet, as we read in history. M. de Turmenie wrote this conversation to the ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... her!" replied the priest, "she succeeded, and her fame has gone far and near, in consequence; yes, may God of his mercy bless and guard her from all evil!" and as the poor hunted priest spoke, the tears came to his eyes. This symptom of respect and affection, prompted by the generous and heroic conduct of the far-famed Cooleen Bawn, touched her father, and ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... sweep and dust the parlor, and keep all the machinery of the house in motion, she may very properly select her work out of the family, in some form of benevolent helpfulness; but when the inevitable evil hour comes, which is likely to come first or last in every American household, is a woman any less an elegant woman because her love of neatness, order, and beauty leads her to make vigorous personal exertions to keep her own home undefiled? ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... stimulating narcotics, assert that the use of coca produces all the evil results of opium; but this, from the evidence of many enlightened travellers, seems not to be the case. Taken immoderately, no doubt it is injurious,—as is tea, coffee, tobacco, or wine; but used as it generally is by the natives, it is to them a great blessing. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... in despair. Perhaps, if their books were taken from them even then, they might forget what they had learned. But no, the evil was done; the brain had received certain impressions that could ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... quality that it is more susceptible of being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the imagination of those whose passions it inflames. But it is on this very account a perilous delusion to teach that war is a cure for moral evil in any other sense than as the sister tribulations are. The eulogies of the frantic hero in "Maud," however, deviate into grosser folly. It is natural that such vagaries should overlook the fixed laws of Providence; and under these laws the mass of mankind is composed ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... the room had to be "dusted," that is it was brushed with the evil feather, which somehow or other did stay on the candidate's nose; and if the spectators clapped and laughed Shirley could scarcely blame them, for Dozia Dalton had a foolish lot of truck to be dusted. More than once she halted, but was promptly prodded ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... Cyrus," he said, "would rather die than lie. I confess no judge was ever placed in so perplexing a position. But were the entire Persian nation to rise up against you, and swear that Cambyses had committed an evil deed, and you were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I, Bartja, would give all Persia the lie and exclaim, 'Ye are all false witnesses! A son of Cyrus cannot allow his mouth to deal in lies.' I swear to you that I am innocent. I have not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... the feeling of hate for another rising vehemently in himself, he should take it as a warning that conscience is battling in his own being with that very thing he loathes. Nations hate other nations for the evil which is in themselves; but they are as little given to self-analysis as individuals, and while they are right to overcome evil, they should first try to understand the genesis of the passion in their ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... more easy nor more difficult than to say: 'Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.' Yet this latter, assuredly, proved the former, and gave it in the sight of all men unquestioned reality. And so it was the thoughts of these scribes, which, as applied to Christ, were 'evil'—since they imputed to Him blasphemy—that gave occasion for offering real evidence of what they would have impugned and denied. In no other manner could the object alike of miracles and of this special miracle have been so attained as by the 'evil thoughts' of these scribes, when, miraculously ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... likewise too true a picture of the lax hold which principles have on a woman's heart, when opposed to, or even separated from, passion and inclination. For women are less hypocrites to their own minds than men are, because in general they feel less proportionate abhorrence of moral evil in and for itself, and more of its outward consequences, as detection and loss of character, than men,—their natures being almost wholly extroitive. Still, however just in itself, the representation of this is not poetical; we ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... menacingly with his head, and the indication contemptuous of his left knee was a triumph. But the finest and most conclusive use of all was his great toe as an index-finger of scorn. It stuck out apart from all the others, red and uncompromising, a conclusive affidavit of evil conduct. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... him cry, was contented, as far as regarded him. For himself, he grew desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I had not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you know, I had been his foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would. Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers; ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... stew, and respect therewith, would taste better than the small bird and the small bottle with insult as a demi-tasse. Then, too, she loses caste at once; for it is not enough that a girl should not do evil: she must also avoid the appearance of evil. She will be judged by the character of her companions, and a few half-hearted denials, a shrug of the shoulders, a discreetly suppressed smile, will place her among the list of ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... thou speakest well. But O fair girl, thou wert born in a respectable family. Chaste as thou art, and always engaged in observing virtuous vows, thou knowest not what is sin. Do thou, therefore, conduct thyself in such a way that sinful men of evil hearts may not be ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the English will do that," Chris said; "but you may be sure that, when the war is over, the Boers will be no longer masters, and there will be just law made by us, and all white men and all natives will be protected, and no evil deeds will be allowed." ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... Sturminster Newton, and near the village of Hazlebury, resides a Dr. B——, who has attained a reputation, far extended, for curing, in a miraculous manner, the king's evil; and as the method he employs is very different from that of most modern practitioners, a short account of it may, perhaps, be acceptable to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various

... before him a sort of welter of gray slime and darkness in which were things visible, things white and vivid, yet vague, broken and unfinished, because his mind refused to join or finish them; things that were faceless and deformed, like white bodies that tumble and toss in the twilight of evil dreams. These white things came tumbling and tossing toward him from the gray confines of the slime; urged by a persistent and abominable life, they were borne perpetually on the darkness and were perpetually thrust back into it ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... that he thought Ferguson had told her about the shooting match, and it was equally plain that he still harbored evil thoughts against the stray-man. And also, he suspected that something more than mere friendship existed between her and Ferguson. She had long hoped that one day she might be given the opportunity of meeting in person a man whose ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... understanding generated the horrid vision. I endeavoured to awaken from my dream, and return to my former state of enjoyment and happiness; but in vain. To the same consideration it may be ascribed, that, unacquainted with the source of the evil, observing its perpetual increase, and finding it, so far as I could perceive, entirely arbitrary in its nature, I was unable to ascertain its limits, or the degree in which ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... practices are always represented as a wrong. When Shamash-shum-ukin sent the bribes to the King of Elam, Ummanigash, he spoiled the treasuries of Merodach at Babylon, of Nabu at Borsippa, and of Nergal at Cutha, and this was reckoned one of his evil deeds, which led to his downfall. But if he had been successful and had repaid his forced loans, doubtless it would have been excused, and his ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... turning to the wall, pressed his face to the hard mattress, and let the deadly hate he bore his cousin fill his very being. He pressed his hand on the stolen papers hidden in his kit. Zaidos must die. Zaidos must die! All his evil blood boiled in him. For hours, when he should have been sleeping off his fatigue, as Zaidos was doing, he lay hating and plotting. A dozen evil schemes formed in his mind, but Velo was a coward. He did not mean to be caught in anything that looked shady. When he was finally rid of his cousin, ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... Another evil result was, that as we had planned the destruction of North Albania, we could not call upon its help. In the autumn of 1915 I received a telegram from Sir Edward Grey suggesting that I and some others who knew ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... constitution is formed, and on which the sanity of life revolves; the character of genius experiences a similar dangerous period. Early bad tastes, early peculiar habits, early defective instructions, all the egotistical pride of an untamed intellect, are those evil spirits which will dog genius to its grave. An early attachment to the works of Sir Thomas Browne produced in JOHNSON an excessive admiration of that Latinised English, which violated the native graces of the language; and the peculiar ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... "peaked" looking, was sitting propped up in bed and enjoying the wine-jelly Mrs. Miller had brought with her own hands. She had hoped to find him in better spirits, and was distressed to see how downcast and listless he was. Just what evil spell had fallen upon the garrison Mrs. Miller could not explain. The major for two or three days had been utterly unlike himself, and would give her no good reason. The cavalry battalion that had reached the post and gone into ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... fine children, and my wife was not a little proud of two such boys: and she daily wishing to return home, I unwillingly agreed, and in an evil hour we got on shipboard; for we had not sailed above a league from Epidamnum before a dreadful storm arose, which continued with such violence, that the sailors seeing no chance of saving the ship, crowded into the boat to save their own lives, leaving us alone in the ship, which ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Humility, large Gifts, or unexampled Patience, but that they were butcher'd without any Cause, upon serious Consultation took up a Resolution of getting together in a Body, and fighting for their Lives and Liberty; for they conceiv'd it was far better, (since Death to them was a necessary Evil) with Sword in Hand to be kill'd by taking Revenge of the Enemy, then be destroy'd by them without satisfaction. But when they grew sensible of their wants of Arms, Nakedness and Debility, and that they were altogether incapable of the management of Horses, so as to prevail against such a furious ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... she had a fine place in a store, and showed us, from time to time, presents the girl had sent her, so thus to find the truth was a shock indeed. Not but what all women who are grown must bear upon them the weight of the general knowledge of evil, but it is none the less awful to come face to face on a street corner with one who was the pretty village girl, whom you last saw standing behind the neat counter with a pitcher of honeysuckles at her elbow as she filled a bag with sugar cookies ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... savage logic which is different from ours and yet is 'logical' in some coherent sense; which stets verneint the conclusions, and even the axioms, which are clear as day to us; and is a 'knowledge of evil' side by side with ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... for your distress, and the temptations you are exposed to. You have our hourly prayers; and we would have you flee this evil great house and man, if you find he renews his attempts. You ought to have done it at first, had you not had Mrs. Jervis to advise with. We can find no fault in your conduct hitherto: But it makes our hearts ache for fear of the worst. O my child! ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... sinner, so overruled and overawed him that no crime could be committed, he would be half-unconscious of the sin in his nature, and would look up no more either for renewal or forgiveness. Men obliged to abstain from evil could not feel that their nature was lower than their conduct. When I have wished, Giles, as I often have done lately, that I could have my time over again, I have felt consoled, in knowing this could not be, to recollect ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... would even go the length of banishing the saints, it seemed to me impossible that the government would attack such a man. I asked myself likewise, cui bono; a question I have always put to myself whenever any action of Napoleon was in discussion. I know that he will, without hesitation, do all the evil which can be of use to him for the least thing; but I do not always conjecture the lengths to which his prodigious egotism extends in all directions, towards the infinitely little, as ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... signs were ominous of calamity to the stranger, who, probably observing a sudden change in the countenance of the astrologer, eagerly inquired what evil or good fortune had been assigned him ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... security; and when the armed population, pouring forth from all quarters, and animated by one spirit of resistance, had advanced as far as the Oka to meet the Tartars, he recalled his son to the capital, as if he apprehended the consummation of some evil either in his own person or that of his heir. But the voice of the general indignation reached him in his retreat, and even his son refused to leave his post in the army. The murmurs of a disappointed people rose into clamors ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... father, who was an officer of the Commissary Department, was dishonestly accumulated. He then declared to him that his wealth ought to be returned to the people. And when he was reprimanded he left the house and refused to avail himself of his father's means. Having come to the conclusion that all evil can be traced to the people's ignorance, he joined the Democrats, on leaving the university, and obtaining the position of village teacher, he boldly preached before his pupils and the peasants that which he considered to be just, and denounced ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... to look across the paling, saw the dim outline of a man's figure in the lane, who appeared watching them. A thrill shot across his breast. These Beauforts, associated in his thoughts with every evil omen and augury, had they set a spy upon his movements? He remained erect and gazing at the form, when Sidney discovered, and ran up to him, with his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... wonderful attractive force between the sexes. A force as evident to the senses as the force of gravitation when properly studied, but unfortunately too little understood. This force, however, exists—is governed by natural laws and exerts its influence for good or evil between every man and woman in the universe; and the man who marries in ignorance of this force, or who violates its laws, is as foolish as he who tempts the law of gravitation by jumping from the brow of a precipice without ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... last, silently and because he was half famished, and could not resist the savory odors of the tempting food Cleena offered him. Yet in his heart there was still anger and evil intent; and though he was amazed to find Mary Reese a guest at the Kayes' table, as well as their "mortal enemy," Mr. Wingate, he made no further comment, and as soon as the meal was over retreated without a word to his chamber and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... body and heavy face toward the preacher, stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly interruption, "Ye beggarly Scot!" he exclaimed thickly. "Ye evil-thinking saint from Salem way, that know the very lining of the Lord's mind, and yet, walking through his earth, see but a poisonous weed in his every harmless flower! Shame on you to beat down the flower that never did you harm! The girl's as innocent a thing as lives! Ay, I've ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... come down to us from the remotest antiquity are generally inspired with a purer sentiment and a loftier purpose than the modern; and it may be said of them all that when they do step into the mud it is not to tarry and wallow in it; it is rather with the unconscious naivete of a child thinking no evil. ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... prevented from his youth, by the great affairs that fell unexpectedly to his share, and by the continual success he met with. This defect in him was the cause, that with the soul in the world the least inclined to evil, he has committed injuries; that with the heart of an Alexander, he has, like him, had his failings; that with a wonderful understanding, he has acted imprudently; that having all the qualities which the Duke Francis of Guise ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... returned the demon, with a scornful laugh, "Yes—I am he whose delight it is to spread desolation over a fertile and beautiful earth—he, whose eternal enmity against man is the fruitful source of so much evil! But of all the disciples who have ever yet aided me in my hostile designs on the human race, none was so serviceable as Faust—that Count of Aurana, whose portrait thou hast so well delineated, and which now graces the wall ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... to-day trying to shoot a hen-hawk that's been hovering about the shack all afternoon. He's after my chickens, and as new-laid eggs are worth more than Browning to a homesteader, I got out my duck-gun. It gave me a feeling of impending evil, having that huge bird hanging about. It reminded me there was wrong and rapine in the world. I hated the brute. But I hid under one of the wagon-boxes and got him, in the end. I brought him down, a tumbling flurry of wings, like Satan's fall from Heaven. When I ran out ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... intellect or affection from beginning to end. Anything is better than this; and yet the very highest schools do the same thing, or nearly so, but with totally different motives and perceptions, and the result is divine. On the whole, I conceive that the extremes of good and evil lie with the finishers, and that whatever glorious power we may admit in men like Tintoret, whatever attractiveness of method to Rubens, Rembrandt, or, though in far less degree, our own Reynolds, still the thoroughly great men are those who have done everything ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... trial. But it was far different when we afterward reasoned together about the purpose which the apparition had come to fulfill—far different when she showed me that its mission might be for good instead of for evil, and that the warning it was sent to give might be to my profit instead of to my loss. At those words, the new idea which gave the new hope of life came to me in an instant. I believed then, what I believe now, that I have a supernatural warrant for my errand ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... round and collected all the 'vanities,' as they were called—wigs and masks and carnival dresses, foolish songs, bad books, and evil pictures; all were heaped high and then lighted to ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman

... from the coercion of patients, from the deception of the public, from the inoculation of legislators with mendacity, capsuled in sophistry, and from the direct or indirect corruption or intimidation of not a few public journals. The discovery of the ways and means and men is bringing the evil ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... every lawyer in the State would have fat business for the next ten years. Some judge will soon give us a precedent in accordance with reason, and this will settle the matter as effectually as did one taste of the tree of knowledge reveal good and evil. It will soon be seen that individual interest is best promoted by general and free drainage—that presumption should be in its favor, and that one man should not be clothed with power to stop others from ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... ferocious feasting, the real reason of which was unknown to me, I heaped the most ill-sounding epithets upon her, calling her a murderess, a bandit, a pirate, a robber of the dead. Ignorance is always evil-tongued; the man who does not know indulges in rude assertions and mischievous interpretations. Now that my eyes have been opened to the facts, I hasten to apologize and to restore the Philanthus to ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... to forget that the law is no perfect structure, that it is simply the result of human labor and human genius, and that whatever laws human ingenuity can create for the protection of men, those same laws human ingenuity can evade. The Spirit of Evil is no dwarf; he has developed equally with the Spirit ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... maire, shireves, and aldermen, and alle other spirituell and temperell gentills and comons of your cite of London; that forasmoch as full grete and sorowefull malices, trespases, and wikkid commecturacions of some men, and of many evil doers of the seid cite, have been procured, done, and evil done to your roial maieste, to grete and perpetuell confusion and repreef of the evil doers, and grete velany and shame to alle dwellyng withynne the same cite, ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous

... wretchedness, all the lamentations of the oppressed and the disinherited! Thus shall my sister stay truly alive, Walburga, and effect noble ends before the face of God through the ethical impulse that lends wings to my soul, and that will be more powerful than all the evil, heartless parson's morality ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... people, the party to which we are greatly indebted for our achievements and our greatness among the family of nations, it was that party that was destined to give birth to and to nurse the first offender of that tradition, who gradually proved to be the evil spirit of the country, and that great party which was born during a national crisis and which had bravely faced and overcome many a grave trial, nobly faced the coming storm and survived it with ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... ramifications of evil! How was what might have been very pure pleasure utterly poisoned and turned into bitterness! It went through Fleda's heart with a keen pang, when she heard that name and looked on the very fair brow that owned it, and ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... remains of the brain, or nerves, or tongue, or eyes, or hands, or feet, with which I did a good or evil deed twenty years since—but it is impossible for me to doubt that it was "I" who did it, that I to-day deserve the praise or blame which ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... good, and had not been even impaired by my anxiety to arrive at Philadelphia. I have received bad news here; Ticonderoga, the strongest American post, has been forced by the enemy; this is very unfortunate, and we must endeavour to repair the evil. Our troops have taken, in retaliation, an English general officer, near New York. I am each day more miserable from having quitted you, my dearest love; I hope to receive news of you at Philadelphia, and this hope adds much to the impatience I feel to arrive in that city. Adieu, my life; ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... convenient for Valentine if Proteus had changed, by the power of the god whose name he bore, the shape of his body at the evil moment when he despised Julia in admiring Silvia. But his body did not change; his smile was still affectionate, and Valentine confided to him the great secret that Silvia had now promised to run away with him. "In the pocket of this cloak," said Valentine, "I have a silken rope ladder, with hooks ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... banks displayed a heartless disposition to scrutinize collateral and to ask embarrassing questions in regard to commercial paper. Rates of interest on loans were ruthlessly advanced, and additional security demanded. A pall of dejection hung over Benham. Evil days had come; days the fruit of a long period of inflation. A dozen leading firms failed and carried down with them diverse small people. Amid the general distrust and anxiety all eyes were fixed on Wall street, the so-called money centre of the country, the Gehenna where this cyclone had ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... hold of the ox's tail[96]—cling to the view of that being the Self, and thus never be able to reach the real Self different from the false Self pointed out to him; hence he would be debarred from what constitutes man's good, and would incur evil. We must therefore conclude that, just as the /s/astra teaches the agnihotra and similar performances in their true nature as means for those who are desirous of the heavenly world, so the passage 'that is the Self, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... holy Samuel did in old days to King Agag, when he was made captive. Agag was a prince, passing proud, the right glorious king of the people of Amalek. He set a quarrel upon the Jews, that he might work them a mischief, since he sought to do them evil. He seized their lands; he burned their goods with fire, and very often he slew them for his pleasure. Then on a day this King Agag was taken at a battle, the more to his sorrow. He was led before Saul, whom these Jews so greatly desired for their king. Whilst Saul was considering ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... astonishingly stupid mutiny, not relieved, even a shade, by the sensational conduct of Howe, the leader, in its last moments, that terminated twenty-four hours after its commencement, on board of the Young America. However, it was hardly more stupid than any other wilful evil-doing. Captain Shuffles, like the potentates of the old world, wishing to have his accession to power signalized by an act of clemency, had pleaded earnestly that the runaways might be forgiven, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... that our time is short and uncertain; and that if we would escape the punishment of the ungodly, and receive the reward of the righteous, which is the laying hold of eternal life, we ought, for the time to come, to return to God by a speedy repentance, ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well: to seek after God early, if happily He may be found of us, and lead such lives for the future, as may be ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... teach him to put me to bed But we were friends again as we are always But I think I am not bound to discover myself Cavaliers have now the upper hand clear of the Presbyterians Confusion of years in the case of the months of January (etc.) Court attendance infinite tedious Cure of the King's evil, which he do deny altogether Diana did not come according to our agreement Did not like that Clergy should meddle with matters of state Dined with my wife on pease porridge and nothing else Dined ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... fyldon h h mid yfelum mannum. (ii) th fylden hi hi mid yvele men. (iii) then filled they them with evil men. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... at the unsightly mass, in her heart envious of his condition. There were things in this world much more evil than this bruised flesh of what had once ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Then one of the captains makes an harangue, setting forth that for a long time they have been accustomed to make this offering, by which means they are ensured protection against their enemies, that otherwise misfortune would befall them from the evil spirit. This done, the maker of the harangue takes the plate and throws the tobacco into the midst of the cauldron (the chasm of foaming water), whereupon they all together raise a loud cry. These poor people are so superstitious, that ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... question of life's worth is answered by a temperamental optimism which makes them incapable of believing that anything seriously evil can exist. Our dear old Walt Whitman's works are the standing text-book of this kind of optimism. The mere joy of living is so immense in Walt Whitman's veins that it abolishes the possibility of any other kind ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... charged upon him,—having been at home in Alexandria during the time when he was accused of having been abroad on the evil errand,—was dragged away to exile, for was he not a Christian? Living or dead, the desert held him. The Roman emperor, Septimius Severus, who ruled Egypt, had lately issued an edict that no one should become a Christian. What hope was ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford

... Inkoosi. They brought you here, they told me how the evil brute of a buffalo had nearly killed you in ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... been the sort of person who finds comfort in mottoes, he'd have laid in a stock, such as, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"; "Holdfast is the only dog"; "Don't cross your bridges until you come to them." As the period between the night of his discovery of Rose on the Globe stage and the day of his return from Dubuque receded, and as the fierceness ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... with mind-sickness, and the two girls who had done neither good nor evil, existing like plants in sunshine, healthy and sound, ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... young of thy flock. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, discomfiture, and rebuke, in all that thou puttest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the evil of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest in to possess it. The LORD shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... exhibited by Mr. Knowles. Its name is intellectualism. This intellectualism, sometimes called gnosticism, claims that knowledge is the source of life, and that the possession of knowledge delivers us from the power of evil. This is an ancient heresy that lives on in every generation. The desire to know and the achievement of skill in the use of knowledge are indeed commendable. But to know is not justifiable as an end in ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe

... is so full of his contrivances and expedients, that I think it may not be amiss to desire you to look carefully to the seals of my letters, as I shall to those of yours. If I find him base in this particular, I shall think him capable of any evil; and will fly him as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... this ceremony performed upon a new turban or other article of attire; possibly it may be intended as a mark of contempt, assumed to blind the evil eye. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... He felt that he stood in the presence of a desire so immense that it belittled his own hopes. He was not too much of a Jew to have sympathy with the ambition that dwells in the breasts of women. Cleopatra had been an evil that he had admired profoundly, because she had attained that which his own soul yearned after but which had eluded him. Yet he was large enough not to be envious of a success. He was made of the stuff that seekers of excitement are made of. If ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... are women over curious to enquire whether the strength of the masculine will makes for good or for evil. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... ugly, evil elements, and probably every foreign office dreads those elements. There are certainly Russian fools who dream about India, German fools who dream about Canada and South America, British fools who dream about Africa and the East; ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... evil—who knows?' he answered, with a careless laugh. 'As to whether I stay here so many weeks or so many years, that is a matter of supreme uncertainty. I never am in the same mind very long together. But I am ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon

... countenance, and interpret rightly the slight flush, the hidden tremor, the shade of pallor, the faint tinge, etc.; but we don't think there are perceptible changes to such an extent except in novels.... I think a great evil of novels for girls, mingled with great good, is the false expectation they raise that somebody will know and understand their every thought, look, emotion.... How glad I am that you have a rival baby to worship—ours is beyond ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... understand them well. May worse guest never visit the Drawing-room at Concord than that bound Book. Tell the good Wife to rejoice in it: she has all the pleasure;—to her poor Husband it will be increase of pain withal: nay, let us call it increase of valiant labor and endeavor; no evil for a man, if he be fit for it! A man must learn to digest praise too, and not be poisoned with it: some of it is wholesome to the system under certain circumstances; the most of it a healthy system will learn ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of spectators, Tadeo, he who was always taken ill the moment the professor appeared, was accompanied by a fellow townsman of his, the novice whom we saw suffer evil consequences from reading wrongly the Cartesian principle. This novice was very inquisitive and addicted to tiresome questions, and Tadeo was taking advantage of his ingenuousness and inexperience to relate to ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... purpose, Merlin (of Douay), when Minister of the police, proposed to the Directory to convert the whole of the buildings of the ci-devant Palais Royal into barracks. This was certainly striking at the root of the evil; but, probably, so bold a project was rejected, lest its execution, in those critical times, should excite the profligate ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... this is due to the fact that Socialism came to the front in Great Britain at a period when unemployment was exceptionally rife, and when for the first time in the nineteenth century the community had become acutely aware of it. In our early days it was commonly believed to be a rapidly growing evil. Machinery was replacing men: the capitalists would employ a few hands to turn the machines on and off: wealth would be produced for the rich, and most of the present manual working class would become superfluous. The only reply, so far as I know, to this line of argumentative forecast ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... University College, but do not as yet know how much difference that means, since this is my natural vacation. I suppose that next October I shall begin to realize the greatness of the change for good or evil. (The enclosed photogram makes my face dirty, and one eye too dark; yet seen through a magnifier it is really good.) I seem to have an Augean stable to cleanse in reducing my papers to simplicity, and burning accumulations of thirty years. I am not likely ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... or of armed peace consumes the vital forces and the resources of nations; and then from the abyss of inequality, of affliction, and danger produced, bursts forth once more the social and political problem demanding, with threats, the reform of the evil, and laying down the maxim that only the ideal of justice, of liberty, and of human solidarity can possibly stand forth, firm and unshaken, amidst the ruins in which the wild ideas of greatness held by the military powers of the world will ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... this tragedy as being the prelude which should lead ultimately to a great European convulsion, but in my own mind, and in view of my past experience, it created a feeling of unrest within me and an instinctive foreboding of evil. Then came a few weeks of the calm which heralded the storm—a calm under cover of which Germany was vigorously ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres



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