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Of two evils choose the least.

E duobus malis minimum eligendum.

Original text (Latin)

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Good and Evil

More quotes by Erasmus

Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.

Letter to Christian Northoff (1497)

I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

Erasmus (1970)

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

A speech comes alive only if it rises from the heart, not if it floats on the lips.

Ciceronianus (1528)

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Adagia (1508)

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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: Erasmus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.