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I must say that anyone who moved through those years [World War II] without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey must have been blind or wrong in the head.

— William Golding

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Good and Evil

More quotes by William Golding

I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men — they are far superior and always have been.

Introduction to his reading of Lord of the Flies in the unabridged audio version (1980)

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

Lord of the Flies (1954)

"How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?"

Lord of the Flies (1954)

Sleep is when all unsorted stuff comes as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.

Pincher Martin (1956)

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.

A Moving Target (1982)

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False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

Edward Teller

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

Henry David Thoreau Walden (1854)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Golding (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.