10kTruth.com, a website devoted
to a guy called The Rage,
Manciata and their running buddies in the Great
Northwest, now takes on good vs. evil. You've probably
seen our quotes about the nature of
truth and those on the values question of what's
really the most valuable thing in the world. Sure,
we took liberties and branched out from our main sports
quotes focus, but now we're forced to go even farther,
to the root. Who could believe that the benign and individual
practice of running now feels the impact of the current
ill state of society. If you think some rational, reasonable,
thoughtful discourse still occurs among those of divergent
views who get together for a weekend run (even in Eugene,
Oregon), you haven't gotten out much lately. Tolerance
of others, acceptance of differences, "I'm okay,
you're okay," even a modicum of the tried and true,
benefit of the doubt? Not here, where every political,
social, (hell, why not say it?) religious conversation
(even those, gasp!, on our running trails) distills down
to one's essential goodness vs. the evilness of everyone
who doesn't lock-step. This band of runners may have been
the last segment of society to polarize, but it's happened.
So which side are you on? The side of Good? Of course
you are. It's the other side that's Evil. Right? Good
vs. Evil frames every discussion; it is the backdrop of
every event; at the heart of every matter. So, we shall
try to shed some light on this, beginning with the greatest
of all the wise (crackers), Mel Brooks.
"But
henceforth who is to define crime? Who shall decide what
is good and what is evil? All the traditional systems
have placed ethics and values beyond man's reach. Values
did not belong to him; he belonged to them. He now knows
that they are his and his alone..."
Jacques Monod
"There
is only one good, namely knowledge, and only one evil,
namely ignorance."
Plato
"So,
Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph
because good is dumb."
Dark Helmet in Mel Brook's Spaceballs
"We
have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built
on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.
And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn,
while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always
a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing
else in the world is."
John Steinbeck , East
of Eden
"Men
never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they
do it from mistaken conviction."
Blaise Pascal
Kevin:
You mean you let all those people die just to test your
creation?
Supreme Being: Yes, you really are a clever boy.
Kevin: Why did they have to die?
Supreme Being: You might as well say, Why do we have to
have evil?
Randall: Oh, we wouldn't dream of asking a question like
that, sir.
Kevin: Yes, why do we have to have evil?
Supreme Being: Ah, I think it's something to do with free
will.
From Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits
"I
look at today's crisis as "good" vs. "evil"...yes,
it is that clear. I know my stance must cause you a little
grief from time to time; and this hurts me; but here at
'years-end' I just wanted
you to know that I feel:
— every human life is precious.. the little Iraqi
kids' too...."
President George Herbert Walker Bush in a New Year's letter
dated December 31, 1990 addressed to his five children,
George, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro.
(Source of Quote: National Archives
and Records Administration, ARC Identifier: 595134 Letter
from George H. W. Bush to His Children on New Year's Eve
1990, 12/31/1990. Source of Photo: ARC Identifier: 595948
Photograph of President George H. W. Bush Reading to Children
on the Great American Read Aloud Day, 04/16/1991. Location
of Photograph and Letter is the George Bush Library (NLGB),
1000 George Bush Drive West, College Station, TX 77845
PHONE: 979-691-4000, FAX: 979-691-4050, EMAIL: bush.library@nara.gov)
"When
a man has made up his mind that he knows all doctrines,
and is fully instructed in religion, and can afford to
look down on all who differ from him; then is that man
ripe and ready for doing something plainly wrong and wicked,
which will blunt his conscience from that day forth, and
teach him to call evil good, and good evil more and more;
till, in the midst of all his fine religious professions,
he knows not plain right from plain wrong--full of the
form of godliness, but denying the power of it in scandal
of his every-day life."
Charles Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons
"If
I were to sin my sins over again, I think I should sin
a little more on the side of candid severity. I am sure
I should do more good in that way, and I am sure that
when I used to dissemble my real mind I did harm to those
whose feelings I wished to spare."
William Dean Howells, Literature and Life, The Young
Contributor
"Once
to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or
evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the
bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon
the right;
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and
that light."
James Russell Lowell, Present Crisis
