A Quote by Joshua Oppenheimer

I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people. — © Joshua Oppenheimer
I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.
If the myth of pure evil is that evil is committed with the intention of causing harm and an absence of moral considerations, then it applies to very few acts of so-called 'pure evil' because most evildoers believe what they are doing is forgivable or justifiable.
The Vimalakirti Sutra states that, when one seeks the Buddhas' emancipation in the minds of ordinary beings, one finds that ordinary beings are the entities of enlightenment, and that the sufferings of birth and death are nirvana. It also states that, if the minds of living beings are impure, their land is also impure, but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our minds.
I like Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil.
And I believe that if 100 million people became embodiments of peace, the world would transform, because consciousness is a collective phenomenon. And what we see as good and evil is the balance between forces.
Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay small acts of kindness and love.
There is no such thing as pure good or pure evil, least of all in people.
People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.
It’s true that someone will always say that good and evil don’t exist: that is a person who has never had any dealings with real evil. Good is far less convincing than evil, but it’s because their chemical structures are different. Like gold, good is never found in a pure state in nature: it therefore doesn’t seem impressive. It has the unfortunate tendency not to act; it prefers, passively, to be seen.
Think always: I am ever-pure, ever-knowing, and ever-free. How can I do anything evil? Can I ever be befooled like ordinary people with the insignificant charms of lust and wealth? Strengthen the mind with such thoughts. This will surely bring real good.
Never put much confidence in such as put no confidence in others. A man prone to suspect evil is mostly looking in his neighbor for what he sees in himself. As to the pure all things are pure, even so to the impure all things are impure.
According as a man acts and walks in the path of life, so he becomes. He that does good becomes good; he that does evil becomes evil. By pure actions he becomes pure; by evil actions he becomes evil.
I think if you're looking for a pure expression of evil, torture is pretty - is a pretty good candidate.
I'm interested in ordinary experience, and regardless of the precise definition of ordinary, and I've found that in so-called ordinary experience, there is as much comedy, tragedy, sadness, as there is in great drama. And I don't invent it, I recognize it.
You can't make a good show based on pure verisimilitude, pure anti-drama. But you have to acknowledge a lot of ordinary life. Most TV doesn't do that.
People are now looking at the world in terms of axis of evil and evil-doers and by logical extension good-doers, and that's a very polarised look at good and bad people. Reality is much more complex than that and people can be good and evil on the very same day.
What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil, envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil.
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