Evil had to manifest itself and fulfill its role, so that ultimately Good could prevail. [...] Evil needs to manifest itself, for them to understand the value of Good.
Know thyself as the pride of His creation, the link uniting divinity and matter; behold a part of God Himself within thee; remember thine own dignity nor dare descend to evil or meanness.
In what way, or by what manner of working, God changes a soul from evil to good, how He impregnates the barren rock--the priceless gems and gold--is to the human mind an impenetrable mystery, in all cases alike.
This is the crux of the moral pessimists: if they really wanted to promote their neighbor's redemption, then they would have to resolve themselves to spoiling existence for him, and thus to being his misfortune; out of pity, they would have to--become evil!
He who commends the nature of the soul as the supreme good, and condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, at once both carnally desires the soul, and carnally flies the flesh, because he feels thus from human vanity, not from divine truth.
I could not help feeling that they were evil things-- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething , half-luminous cloud-background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial; and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world.
Of all evil I deem you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.