The smallest evil that is inflicted on us seems to us a monstrous and horrible injustice. On the contrary, we are willing to consider the evils of others' light and to excuse and mitigate the injustices suffered by them.

I believe that most of us tend to underrate the evilness of suffering. The reason is that it is difficult for us, when not actually suffering, to recollect what suffering really is. We employ numerous psychological mechanisms to conceal from our consciousness the true nature or meaning of suffering, to falsify and deny it. We do this without renouncing the word, however. The word comes to designate, in our minds, only a faint copy or superficial image of the real thing; but having forgotten what the original is, we mistake it in the copy. We ascribe to "suffering" a certain gravity of evil; but it is slight compared to what we would ascribe to suffering itself, if we could only recall its true meaning.

It seems to me very important to continue to distinguish between two evils. It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism — the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it — is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.

Evil…doesn’t mean doing things that have bad consequences for people. It means private thoughts and actions that are not to “the Christian majority’s” private liking.

Evil, then consists essentially in the choice of what is lower in preference to what is higher.

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.

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

The lesser of two evils is not the greater good.

The existence of evil isn't a claim upon you. 'Evil' will always exist in the world. To accept as a principle that you must fight something because it is evil is to believe you must fight anything that's evil. There's no end to the number of evils that could command your attention. Is that all your life is for — to spend it fighting evil?

I don’t see any point in trying to equate one evil with another, or to assign some stupid scale of values. They’re both awful! Would

Evil is non-being, the good is being, since it has come into being from the existing God

The status of evil is that of a parasite. It has no permanent life of itself; its whole existence depends on the life it borrows from its parent, and when its connection with the parent is severed nothing remains. Apparent evil is the result of ignorance, and when the truth is presented the error disappears. Jesus called it a liar and the father of lies.

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions...
Ideology — that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.