Malice

For the 1993 film, see Malice (film).

Malice, or ill will, is the intention to harm or deprive another in an illegal or immoral way, or to take pleasure in another's misfortune.

Quotes

• The spirit burdened with malice cannot rise.
  But kindness set free soars into the radiance of the Light. 400.
  • Agni Yoga, Leaves of Morya’s Garden: Book One: The Call (1924)

• Malice admits leprosy and pestilence. Malice can transform a peaceful fireside into a swarm of snakes. Qualities of malice are not befitting the community. The common task is General Welfare.
  • Agni Yoga New Era Community (1929)

• It is not fitting for people to sit in a chicken-coop. It is time to know the planet and to assist it... It also cannot be forgotten that people can gnaw each other in two. This consideration must not be forgotten, since malice is deluging the Earth. 112.
  • Agni Yoga New Era Community (1929)

• I shall say of treason to the fanatics and bigots. They assume that treason is only a matter of thirty pieces of silver, but they forget that it is contained in each blasphemy and slander. One should not think that a malicious word is not also treason. It is precisely malice that is often inseparable from treason and slander. One and the same black tree nurtures these loathsome branches, and their fruits are as black as the roots of shame. One must speedily liberate oneself from the horror of malicious words. 376.
  • Agni Yoga Hierarchy (1931)

• Depressed people are said to be deprived of their share. Ponder these words. Who has deprived them of their inherent share? First of all they deprived themselves of any possibilities. They began their own destruction long ago. Discontent, malice, irritation cut off the path to joy. Dark thoughts deprived them of the source of strength.
• Helena Roerich, Letters II, 7 May 1938 »

• We are strangers to Christian love, if we harbor malice or revenge in our hearts toward any of our fellow-creatures, whatever treatment we receive at their hands.
  • Charles Backus, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 401.

• To be useful as a Christian, a man must keep himself free from all malign feelings, from all bitterness of resentment. Even righteous indignation must not drag Love from her throne. Over all the soul's passions Love must preside in serene majesty. The Christian worker must learn (and the sooner the better) if he has not already learned, that there is something better for a Christian than to plan revenge, and nurse resentment, and call down fire from heaven, even on those who show themselves base and unworthy.
  • Prof. Ballard, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 401.

• You must beware of seeing malice behind accidental injury.
  • Philip K. Dick, Clans of the Alphane Moon, Ch. 11 (1964).

• Vanity backbites more than Malice.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1745).

• Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
  • Robert J. Hanlon, Murphy's Law book two: More reasons why things go wrong! (1980) ISBN 0843106743 by Arthur Bloch page 52.

• It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness.
  • Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms, Section 42 (1955).

• There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people; we are laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
  • Eric Hoffer, “Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including ‘Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely,’” The New York Times Magazine, pp. 60, 62 (April 25, 1971).

• At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.
  • Aldous Huxley, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1952).

• Contre la médisance il n'est point de rempart.
  • Translation: There is no rampart that will hold out against malice.
  • Molière, Tartuffe, Act I, sc. i (1664).

• Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men.
  • Napoleon I of France, Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831).

• Man loves malice, but not against one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud.
  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées, Section I Thoughts on Mind and Style (1-59), No. 41 (1669).

• This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.
  • John Cowper Powys, The Complex Vision, Ch. 1 (1920).

• You should not feel that your path is the only right path and that other paths are wrong. You mustn't bear malice toward others.
  • Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 514 (1942).

• Beware of that which becomes the slanderer's life, of magnifying every speck of evil and closing the eye to goodness, till at last men arrive at the state in which generous, universal love (which is heaven) becomes impossible, and a suspicious, universal hate takes possession of the heart, and that is hell.
  • Frederick William Robertson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 402.

• There is no cure for ossification of the heart. Oh, that miserable state, when to the jaundiced eye all good transforms itself into evil, and the very instruments of health become the poison of disease.
  • Frederick William Robertson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 402.

• Depressed people are said to be deprived of their share. Ponder these words. Who has deprived them of their inherent share? First of all they deprived themselves of any possibilities. They began their own destruction long ago. Discontent, malice, irritation cut off the path to joy. Dark thoughts deprived them of the source of strength. Selfhood prevented the discernment of joy. Egoism whispered, Joy lies only in personal gain. Thus the most fruitful joy was hidden behind ugly piles of depression. Those blinded by depression are the most pitiful of bipeds.
• Helena Roerich, Letters II, 7 May 1938 »

• Malice is of a low Stature, but it hath very long Arms. It often reacheth into the next World, Death itself is not a Bar to it.
  • George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections, Moral Thoughts and Reflections (1750).

• Malice, like Lust, when it is at the Height, doth not know Shame.
  • George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections, Moral Thoughts and Reflections (1750).

• Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — the solitary one — that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices — the most hateful...He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain...Also — in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.
  • Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 7 (1924).