A Quote by John Fowles

Duty is but a pot. It holds whatever is put in it, from the greatest evil to the greatest good.

John Fowles

Quote Topics

Duty Evil Good Greatest Holds Pot Put Whatever

Quote Author

John Fowles
English - Novelist
March 31, 1926 - November 5, 2005

He felt that there is a loose balance of good and evil, and that the art of living consists in getting the greatest good out of the greatest evil.

Machado de Assis

The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest precept is continual awareness. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest generosity is non-attachment. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. The greatest patience is humility. The greatest effort is not concerned with results. The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

Atisa

The truth holds the greatest magic, the greatest beauty, and sometimes the greatest danger.

Esther M. Friesner

What is the most profitable? Fellowship with the good. What is the worst thing in the world? The society of evil men. What is the greatest loss? Failure in one?s duty. Where is the greatest peace? In truth and righteousness. Who is the hero? The man who subdues his senses. Who is the best beloved? The faithful wife. What is wealth? Knowledge. What is the most perfect happiness? Staying at home.

Bhartrhari

wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.

Wallace Stegner

But what is the greatest evil? If you are going to epitomize evil, what is it? Is it the bomb? The greatest evil that one has to fight constantly, every minute of the day until one dies, is the worse part of oneself.

Patrick McGoohan

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Plato

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

Plato

There is a view that jazz is 'evil' because it comes from evil people, but actually the greatest priests on 52nd Street and on the streets of New York City were the musicians. They were doing the greatest healing work. They knew how to punch through music that would cure and make people feel good.

Garth Hudson

A votary of ahimsa cannot subscribe to the utilitarian formula (of the greatest good of the greatest number). He will strive for the greatest good of all and die in the attempt to realize that ideal.

Mahatma Gandhi

Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

Alexander Pope

No one can take less pains than to hold his tongue. Hear much, and speak little; for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world.

Walter Raleigh

The very greatest genius, after all, is not the greatest thing in the world, any more than the greatest city in the world is the country or the sky. It is the concentration of some of its greatest powers, but it is not the greatest diffusion of its might. It is not the habit of its success, the stability of its sereneness.

Leigh Hunt

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

Lao Tzu

The answer to the problem of evil does not lie in trying to establish its point of origin, for that is simply not revealed to us. Rather, in the moment of the cross, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good.... If God can take the greatest of evils and turn them for the greatest of goods, then how much more can he take the lesser evils which litter human history, from individual tragedies to international disasters, and turn them to his good purpose as well.