“
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon.... If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.
”
”
Gautama Buddha
“
Governments will rise, and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good.
”
”
Margaret Peterson Haddix (Among the Enemy (Shadow Children, #6))
“
To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.
”
”
Romain Rolland
“
There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through. When that happens, the man who knows must strike before reckoning the consequences.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (The Thing on the Doorstep)
“
The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years.
All business and politics is personal in the Philippines.
If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump.
They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on.
I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged.
I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy.
You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn.
Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race.
After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself.
It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up.
He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather.
The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up.
You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points]
Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse.
You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow.
In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil.
There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country.
Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us.
The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys.
The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time.
I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality.
The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent.
Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins.
Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it.
Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds.
Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising.
A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't.
Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill.
It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most.
Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold.
Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink?
She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.
”
”
John Richard Spencer
“
There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.
”
”
Arthur Machen (The Red Hand)
“
Kill a man who needs killing, and sometimes others pay for it. The question is, was it worth doing it anyway? There's always a balance, you know. Good and evil. Light and Shadow. We would not be human if there wasn't a balance.
”
”
Robert Jordan (The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3))
“
Fear was the worst evil ever to plague a man, for with it came hesitation and with that, inaction, failure, death.
”
”
Melissa McPhail (Cephrael's Hand (A Pattern of Shadow & Light, #1))
“
A shadowless man is a monster, a devil, a thing of evil. A man without a shadow is soulless. A shadow without a man is a pitiable shred. Yet together, light and dark, they make a whole.
”
”
Jane Yolen (Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood)
“
Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws?
She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.
She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they like to be soft.
She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.
”
”
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
“
Over the souls of men spread the condor wings of colossal monsters and all manner of evil things prey upon the heart and soul and body of Man. Yet it may be in some far day the shadows shall fade and the Prince of Darkness be chained forever in his hell. And till then mankind can but stand up stoutly to the monsters in his own heart and without, and with the aid of God he may yet triumph.
”
”
Robert E. Howard (The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane)
“
She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell.
Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it.
And it's delicious.
”
”
Orson Scott Card (Shadow of the Hegemon (The Shadow Series, #2))
“
It is the face of his own evil shadow that grins at Western man from the other side of the Iron curtain.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Man and His Symbols)
“
Priests of a thousand cults proclaim the essential goodliness of Man. They must be fools. All I see is people flinging themselves at the chance to do evil.
”
”
Glen Cook
“
Faustus, who embraced evil and shunned righteousness, became the foremost symbol of the misuse of free will, that sublime gift from God with its inherent opportunity to choose virtue and reject iniquity. “What shall a man gain if he has the whole world and lose his soul,” (Matt. 16: v. 26) - but for a notorious name, the ethereal shadow of a career, and a brief life of fleeting pleasure with no true peace? This was the blackest and most captivating tragedy of all, few could have remained indifferent to the growing intrigue of this individual who apparently shook hands with the devil and freely chose to descend to the molten, sulphuric chasm of Hell for all eternity for so little in exchange. It is a drama that continues to fascinate today as powerfully as when Faustus first disseminated his infamous card in the Heidelberg locale to the scandal of his generation. In fine, a life of good or evil, the hope of Heaven or the despair of Hell, Faustus stands as a reminder that the choice between these two absolutes also falls to us.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Faust: My Soul be Damned for the World, Vol. 1)
“
The simple fact is that evil preys on good, and today, good had a bad day. Which brings with it an acceptance of the other side of that argument, that tomorrow might be evil's turn for some rain. And that's called hope.
”
”
Cody McFadyen (Shadow Man (Smoky Barrett, #1))
“
Just as there is an archetype of woman as the object of man's eternal love, so there must be an archetype of her as the object of his eternal fear, representing, perhaps, the shadow of his own evil actions.
”
”
Fumiko Enchi (Masks)
“
He began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. In the Creation of Ea, which is the oldest song, it is said, 'Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1))
“
The most foolish mistake man often makes is believing that evil lurks only in the darkness. There is no safety in the sun. Only shadows fear the sun. And shadows are just the dark reflections of daylight. True evil is as at home in the bright light as it is in the darkness. And it has no qualms about snatching you right out in the open.
”
”
C. Robert Cargill (Queen of the Dark Things (Dreams & Shadows, #2))
“
When the gap between the world of the city and the world my grandfather had presented to me as right and good became too wide and depressing to tolerate, I'd turn to my other great love, which was pulp adventure fiction. Despite the fact that [he] would have had nothing but scorn and loathing for all of those violent and garish magazines, there was a sort of prevailing morality in them that I'm sure he would have responded to. The world of Doc Savage and The Shadow was one of absolute values, where what was good was never in the slightest doubt and where what was evil inevitably suffered some fitting punishment. The notion of good and justice espoused by Lamont Cranston with his slouch hat and blazing automatics seemed a long way from that of the fierce and taciturn old man I remembered sitting up alone into the Montana night with no company save his bible, but I can't help feeling that if the two had ever met they'd have found something to talk about. For my part, all those brilliant and resourceful sleuths and heroes offered a glimpse of a perfect world where morality worked the way it was meant to. Nobody in Doc Savage's world ever killed themselves except thwarted kamikaze assassins or enemy spies with cyanide capsules. Which world would you rather live in, if you had the choice?
”
”
Alan Moore (Watchmen)
“
A thing which has lost its idea is like the man who has lost his shadow, and it must either fall under the sway of madness or perish.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena)
“
This is the thing, I think often, that never occurs to you when you consider what it would be like to lose someone you love. That you would miss not just the flowers and kisses, but the totality of the experience. You miss the failures and little evils with as much desperation as you miss being held in the middle of the night. I wish he were here now, and I was kissing him. I wish he were here now, and I was betraying him. Either would be fine, so fine, as long as he was here.
”
”
Cody McFadyen (Shadow Man (Smoky Barrett, #1))
“
There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention- that indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary- the sunshine, the memories, the future,- which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life.
”
”
Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim)
“
Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there converted into evil.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
Why Do People become Shadowhunters, by Magnus Bane
This Codex thing is very silly. Downworlders talk about the Codex like it is some great secret full of esoteric knowledge, but really itès a Boy Scout manual.
One thing that it mysteriously doesnèt address is why people become Shadowhunters. And you should know that people become Shadowhunters for many stupid reasons.
So here is an addition to your copy.
Greetings, aspiring young Shadowhunter-to-be- or possibly already technically a Shadowhunter. I canèt remember whether you drink from the Cup first or get the book first. Regardless, you have just been recruited by the Monster Police. You may be wondering, why? Why of all the mundanes out there was I selected and invited to this exclusive club made up largely, at least from a historical perspective, of murderous psychopaths?
Possible Reasons Why
1. You possess a stout heart, strong will, and able body.
2. You possess a stout body, able will, and strong heart.
3. Local Shadowhunters are ironically punishing you by making you join them.
4. You were recruited by a local institute to join the Nephilim as an ironic punishment for your mistreatment of Downworlders.
5. Your home , village, or nation is under siege by demons.
6. You home, village, or nation is under siege by rogue Downworlders.
7. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
8.You know too much, and should be recruited because the secrecy of the Shadow World has already been compromised for you.
9. You know too little; it would be helpful to the Shadowhunters if you knew more.
10. You know exactly the right amount, making you a natural recruit.
11. You possess a natural resistance to glamour magic and must be recruited to keep you quiet and provide you with some basic protection.
12. You have a compound last name already and have convinced someone important that yours is a Shadowhunter family and the Shadowhunteriness has just been weakened by generations of bad breeding.
13. You had a torrid affair with a member of the Nephilim council and now he's trying to cover his tracks.
14. Shadowhunters are concerned they are no longer haughty and condescending enough-have sought you out to add a much needed boost of haughty condescension.
15. You have been bitten by a radioactive Shadowhunter, giving you the proportional strength and speed of a Shadowhunter.
16. Large bearded man on flying motorcycle appeared to take you away to Shadowhunting school.
17. Your mom has been in hiding from your evil dad, and you found out you're a Shadowhunter only a few weeks ago.
That's right. Seventeen reasons. Because that's how many I came up with. Now run off, little Shadowhunter, and learn how to murder things. And be nice to Downworlders.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Shadowhunter's Codex)
“
Man must have light. He must live in the fierce full constant glare of light, where all shadow will be defined and sharp and unique and personal: the shadow of his own singular rectitude or baseness. All human evils have to come out of obscurity and darkness, where there is nothing to dog man constantly with the shape of his own deformity.
”
”
William Faulkner (The Mansion (The Snopes Trilogy, #3))
“
- If each man picks an evil and attacks it relentlessly, how long can evil persist?
That was an easy one. Forever. More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.
”
”
Glen Cook (Shadow Games (The Chronicles of the Black Company, #4))
“
A wise man, recognising that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering
If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
”
”
Gautama Buddha
“
You are Tal’kamar, though precious few know you as such. You destroyed Saran’geth for an ideal. You butchered the Arathi for revenge. You created the Plains of Decay for the love of a woman long dead.” He paused. “You saved Jala Terr knowing it would cost you a century alone. You hid Wereth from the Shadows because you believed a good man was worth more than a good name. You destroyed us—and then, when we hated you most, you saved us at the expense of everything you ever wanted.” There was sadness in those blue eyes as he said the last. Sadness, and bright pain. “You have lived for over four thousand years, and done so much evil and so much good. You are a legend here amongst the Lyth, despised and beloved, famous and infamous both. You are Tal’kamar,” he finished softly.
”
”
James Islington (The Shadow of What Was Lost (The Licanius Trilogy, #1))
“
Thought in the mind hath made us, What we are By thought was wrought and built. If a man's mind Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes The wheel the ox behind.... ..If one endure In purity of thought, joy follows him As his own shadow—sure.
”
”
James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)
“
Simon Waite. What an odd, tragic, terrible man. He was a monster, no doubt about it. He was a vicious, cruel, evil, and sadistic thing. Because he’d taken his heart and cast it into his shadow. Because if he hadn’t, there’d be nothing left of him to salvage.
”
”
Kathryn Ann Kingsley (The Clown (Harrow Faire, #3))
“
I am deep in my willed habits. From the outside, I suppose I look like an unoccupied house with one unconvincing night-light left on. Any burglar could look through my curtains and conclude I am empty. But he would be mistaken. Under that one light unstirred by movement or shadows there is a man at work, and as long as I am at work I am not a candidate for Menlo Park, or that terminal facility they cynically call a convalescent hospital, or a pine box. My habits and the unchanging season sustain me. Evil is what questions and disrupts.
”
”
Wallace Stegner (Angle of Repose)
“
My son, you are just an infant now, but on that day when the world disrobes of its alluring cloak, it is then that I pray this letter is in your hands.
Listen closely, my dear child, for I am more than that old man in the dusty portrait beside your bed. I was once a little boy in my mother’s arms and a babbling toddler on my father's lap.
I played till the sun would set and climbed trees with ease and skill. Then I grew into a fine young man with shoulders broad and strong. My bones were firm and my limbs were straight; my hair was blacker than a raven's beak. I had a spring in my step and a lion's roar. I travelled the world, found love and married. Then off to war I bled in battle and danced with death.
But today, vigor and grace have forsaken me and left me crippled.
Listen closely, then, as I have lived not only all the years you have existed, but another forty more of my own.
My son, We take this world for a permanent place; we assume our gains and triumphs will always be; that all that is dear to us will last forever.
But my child, time is a patient hunter and a treacherous thief: it robs us of our loved ones and snatches up our glory. It crumbles mountains and turns stone to sand. So who are we to impede its path?
No, everything and everyone we love will vanish, one day.
So take time to appreciate the wee hours and seconds you have in this world. Your life is nothing but a sum of days so why take any day for granted? Don't despise evil people, they are here for a reason, too, for just as the gift salt offers to food, so do the worst of men allow us to savor the sweet, hidden flavor of true friendship.
Dear boy, treat your elders with respect and shower them with gratitude; they are the keepers of hidden treasures and bridges to our past. Give meaning to your every goodbye and hold on to that parting embrace just a moment longer--you never know if it will be your last.
Beware the temptation of riches and fame for both will abandon you faster than our own shadow deserts us at the approach of the setting sun. Cultivate seeds of knowledge in your soul and reap the harvest of good character.
Above all, know why you have been placed on this floating blue sphere, swimming through space, for there is nothing more worthy of regret than a life lived void of this knowing.
My son, dark days are upon you. This world will not leave you with tears unshed. It will squeeze you in its talons and lift you high, then drop you to plummet and shatter to bits . But when you lay there in pieces scattered and broken, gather yourself together and be whole once more. That is the secret of those who know.
So let not my graying hairs and wrinkled skin deceive you that I do not understand this modern world. My life was filled with a thousand sacrifices that only I will ever know and a hundred gulps of poison I drank to be the father I wanted you to have.
But, alas, such is the nature of this life that we will never truly know the struggles of our parents--not until that time arrives when a little hand--resembling our own--gently clutches our finger from its crib.
My dear child, I fear that day when you will call hopelessly upon my lifeless corpse and no response shall come from me. I will be of no use to you then but I hope these words I leave behind will echo in your ears that day when I am no more. This life is but a blink in the eye of time, so cherish each moment dearly, my son.
”
”
Shakieb Orgunwall
“
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: It is built on our thoughts, it is made from our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with evil thought, pain follows him, just like the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the cart. If a person speaks or acts with pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves...
”
”
Roland Merullo (Breakfast with Buddha)
“
It is well known that Freudian psychoanalysis is limited to the task of making conscious the shadow-side and the evil within us. It simply brings into action the civil war that was latent, and lets it go at that.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Modern Man in Search of a Soul)
“
An honest man's the noblest work of God." Alexander Pope
Psalm 23:4
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.~Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 - 1861
”
”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“
Why should you desire to compel others; why should you seek to have power— that evil, bitter, mocking thing, which has been from of old, as it is today, the sorrow and curse of the world—over your fellow-men and fellow-women? Why should you desire to take from any man or woman their own will and intelligence, their free choice, their own self-guidance, their inalienable rights over themselves; why should you desire to make of them mere tools and instruments for your own advantage and interest; why should you desire to compel them to serve and follow your opinions instead of their own; why should you deny in them the soul—that suffers so deeply from all constraint—and treat them as a sheet of blank paper upon which you may write your own will and desires, of whatever kind they may happen to be? Who gave you the right, from where do you pretend to have received it, to degrade other men and women from their own true rank as human beings, taking from them their will, their conscience, and intelligence—in a word, all the best and highest part of their nature—turning them into mere empty worthless shells, mere shadows of the true man and women, mere counters in the game you are mad enough to play, and just because you are more numerous or stronger than they, to treat them as if they belonged not to themselves, but to you? Can you believe that good will ever come by morally and spiritually degrading your fellow-men? What happy and safe and permanent form of society can you hope to build on this pitiful plan of subjecting others, or being yourselves subjected by them?
”
”
Auberon Herbert
“
But there is a great difficulty that I have mentioned only indirectly up till now. This is that every personification of the unconscious—the shadow, the anima, the animus, and the Self—has both a light and a dark aspect. We saw before that the shadow may be base or evil, an instinctive drive that one ought to overcome. It may, however, be an impulse toward growth that one should cultivate and follow. In the same way the anima and animus have dual aspects: They can bring life-giving development and creativeness to the personality, or they can cause petrification and physical death. And even the Self, the all-embracing symbol of the unconscious, has an ambivalent effect, as for instance in the Eskimo tale (this page), when the “little woman” offered to save the heroine from the Moon Spirit but actually turned her into a spider.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Man and His Symbols)
“
I don't myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn't given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn't given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins-not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It's the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You'll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don't think you help people by making their conduct of no importance-you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that's what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.
”
”
Willa Cather (The Professor's House)
“
If any one judge it hard that men should be made with ambitions to whose objects they can never attain, I answer, ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration; and no man ever followed the truth, which is the one path of aspiration, and in the end complained that he had been made this way or that.
”
”
George MacDonald (Sir Gibbie)
“
As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that's what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.
”
”
Willa Cather (The Professor's House)
“
Do you repent?” asked a deep, solemn voice, which caused Danglars’ hair to stand on end. His feeble eyes endeavored to distinguish objects, and behind the bandit he saw a man enveloped in a cloak, half lost in the shadow of a stone column.
“Of what must I repent?” stammered Danglars.
“Of the evil you have done,” said the voice.
“Oh, yes; oh, yes, I do indeed repent.” And he struck his breast with his emaciated fist.
“Then I forgive you,” said the man, dropping his cloak, and advancing to the light.
“The Count of Monte Cristo!” said Danglars, more pale from terror than he had been just before from hunger and misery.
“You are mistaken—I am not the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“Then who are you?”
“I am he whom you sold and dishonored—I am he whose betrothed you prostituted—I am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune—I am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger—I am he whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you, because he hopes to be forgiven—I am Edmond Dantes!
”
”
Alexandre Dumas fils (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
Evil, Mr. Tagomi thought. Yes, it is. Are we to assist it in gaining power, in order to save our lives? Is that the paradox of our earthly situation? I cannot face this dilemma, Mr. Tagomi said to himself. That man should have to act in such moral ambiguity. There is no Way in this; all is muddled. All chaos of light and dark, shadow and substance.
”
”
Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle)
“
Being a King did not interest him because the heads of Kings all too often found their way to spikes on castle walls when things went wrong. But the advisors to Kings . . . the spinners in the shadows . . . such people usually melted away like evening shadows at dawning as soon as the headsman’s axe started to fall. Flagg was a sickness, a fever looking for a cool brow to heat up. He hooded his actions just as he hooded his face. And when the great trouble came—as it always did after a span of years—Flagg always disappeared like shadows at dawn. Later, when the carnage was over and the fever had passed, when the rebuilding was complete and there was again something worth destroying, Flagg would appear once more.
”
”
Stephen King
“
Returning from a hunting trip, Orde-Lees, traveling on skis across the rotting surface of the ice, had just about reached camp when an evil, knoblike head burst out of the water just in front of him. He turned and fled, pushing as hard as he could with his ski poles and shouting for Wild to bring his rifle. The animal—a sea leopard—sprang out of the water and came after him, bounding across the ice with the peculiar rocking-horse gait of a seal on land. The beast looked like a small dinosaur, with a long, serpentine neck. After a half-dozen leaps, the sea leopard had almost caught up with Orde-Lees when it unaccountably wheeled and plunged again into the water. By then, Orde-Lees had nearly reached the opposite side of the floe; he was about to cross to safe ice when the sea leopard’s head exploded out of the water directly ahead of him. The animal had tracked his shadow across the ice. It made a savage lunge for Orde-Lees with its mouth open, revealing an enormous array of sawlike teeth. Orde-Lees’ shouts for help rose to screams and he turned and raced away from his attacker. The animal leaped out of the water again in pursuit just as Wild arrived with his rifle. The sea leopard spotted Wild, and turned to attack him. Wild dropped to one knee and fired again and again at the onrushing beast. It was less than 30 feet away when it finally dropped. Two dog teams were required to bring the carcass into camp. It measured 12 feet long, and they estimated its weight at about 1,100 pounds. It was a predatory species of seal, and resembled a leopard only in its spotted coat—and its disposition. When it was butchered, balls of hair 2 and 3 inches in diameter were found in its stomach—the remains of crabeater seals it had eaten. The sea leopard’s jawbone, which measured nearly 9 inches across, was given to Orde-Lees as a souvenir of his encounter. In his diary that night, Worsley observed: “A man on foot in soft, deep snow and unarmed would not have a chance against such an animal as they almost bound along with a rearing, undulating motion at least five miles an hour. They attack without provocation, looking on man as a penguin or seal.
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Alfred Lansing (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
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I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life, - or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it; - I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; - and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.'
'Granted; - but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?'
'Certainly not.'
'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant - taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?'
'Assuredly not.'
'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded, that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity, - whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further developed - '
'Heaven forbid that I should think so!' I interrupted her at last."
'Well, then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the merest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished - his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse the evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself; - and as for my son - if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man of the world - one that has "seen life," and glories in his experience, even though he should so far profit by it as to sober down, at length, into a useful and respected member of society - I would rather that he died to-morrow! - rather a thousand times!' she earnestly repeated, pressing her darling to her side and kissing his forehead with intense affection. He had already left his new companion, and been standing for some time beside his mother's knee, looking up into her face, and listening in silent wonder to her incomprehensible discourse.
Anne Bronte, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (24,25)
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Anne Brontë
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Jimmy Sadd is the most evil man I’ve ever known. I mean really evil. I’m not talking about tough, or cruel – all the bosses are tough and cruel. You’ll never get anywhere in our world if you’re not respected. But Jimmy ... God damn, Bruno, getting involved with Sadd ... I’d rather do a deal with the devil himself. Sadd is worse. You’ll never get out.”
George Hanson
In The Shadow of Sadd.
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Steen Langstrup (In The Shadow of Sadd)
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the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. 12Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him. 13But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.
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Anonymous (ESV Daily Reading Bible: Through the Bible in 365 Days, based on the popular M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan: Through the Bible in 365 Days, based on the popular M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan)
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You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?'
'No,' said Father Brown.
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G.K. Chesterton (New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories)
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Some people say that love itself is the most powerful magic,” Caitlyn said.
“But would true love make a man go against every principle that had guided his life, and make him break vows he had made to God?” Raphael
shook his head. “Simon brought Eshael here, to the château, but she would not give up her goddess and so he could not marry her. The local men
were frightened of Eshael and her strange ways. There were stories of firelight in the caves that pierce the cliffs beneath the château, and the
dancing shadows of local women that Eshael had converted to worship of her goddess.
“Simon’s love for Eshael began to fade; he started to see evil in all she did and all she was. The final straw came after Eshael bore him their first
child, a daughter. When Simon discovered Eshael consecrating their child to her goddess, the last vestiges of his love turned to hatred. In his rage,
he killed her.
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Lisa Cach (Wake Unto Me)
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The evil, the guilt, the profound unease of conscience, the dark foreboding, are there before our eyes, if only we would see. Man has done these things; I am a man, who has his share of human nature; therefore I am guilty with the rest and bear unaltered and indelibly within me the capacity and the inclination to do them again at any time. Even if, juristically speaking, we were not accessories to the crime, we are always, thanks to our human nature, potential criminals. In reality we merely lacked a suitable opportunity to be drawn into the infernal mêlée. None of us stands outside humanity’s black collective shadow. Whether the crime occurred many generations back or happens today, it remains the symptom of a disposition that is always and everywhere present—and one would therefore do well to possess some “imagination for evil,” for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an instrument of evil.
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C.G. Jung (The Undiscovered Self/Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams)
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You destroyed Saran'geth for an ideal. You butchered the Arathi for revenge. You created the Plains of Decay for the love of a woman long dead...You saved Jala Terr knowing it would cost you a century alone. You hid Wereth from the Shadows because you believed a good man was worth more than a good name. You destroyed us--and then, when we hated you most, you saved us at the expense of everything you ever wanted...You have lived for over four thousand years, and done so much evil and so much good. You are a legend here amongst the Lyth, despised and beloved, famous and infamous both.
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James Islington (The Shadow of What Was Lost (The Licanius Trilogy, #1))
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As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that's what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man he only happiness he has ever had.
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Willa Cather (The Professor's House)
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The necessity arising from a want of specie is represented as greater than it really is. I contend that it is by the substance, not the shadow of a thing, we are to be benefited. The wisdom of man, in my humble opinion, cannot at this time devise a plan by which the credit of paper money would be long supported; consequently, depreciation keeps pace with the quantity of the emission, and articles for which it is exchanged rise in a greater ratio than the sinking value of the money. Wherein, then, is the farmer, the planter, the artisan benefited? An evil equally great is the door it immediately opens for speculation, by which the least designing and perhaps most valuable part of the community are preyed upon by the more knowing and crafty speculators.
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G. Edward Griffin (The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve)
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Ego and Shadow, indeed, although separate, are inextricably linked together in much the same way that thought and feeling are related to each other... The ego, nevertheless, is in conflict with the shadow, in what Dr. Jung once called "the battle for deliverance." In the struggle of primitive man to achieve consciousness, this conflict is expressed by the contest between the archetypal hero and the cosmic powers of evil, personified by dragons and other monsters. In the developing consciousness of the individual the hero figure is the symbolic means by which the emerging ego overcomes the inertia of the unconscious mind, and liberates the mature man from a regressive longing to return to the Blissful state of infancy in a world dominated by his mother.
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Joseph L. Henderson (Man and His Symbols)
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Regarded everywhere as an absolute advance of the human race, and with the seal set on it by human rights, liberation starts out from the idea of a natural predestination to be free: being 'liberated' absolves the human being of an original evil, restores a happy purpose and a natural vocation to him.
It is our salvation, the true baptismal sacrament of modern, democratic man.
Now, this is a utopia.
This impulse to resolve the ambivalence of good and evil and jump over one's shadow into absolute positivity is a utopia.
The ambivalence is definitive, and the things liberated are liberated in total ambivalence.
You cannot liberate good without liberating evil. Sometimes evil even quicker than good, as part of the same movement.
At any rate, what we have here is a deregulation of both.
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Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (Talking Images))
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I will not mention the name (and what bits of it I happen to give here appear in decorous disguise) of that man, that Franco-Hungarian writer... I would rather not dwell upon him at all, but I cannot help it— he is surging up from under my pen. Today one does not hear much about him; and this is good, for it proves that I was right in resisting his evil spell, right in experiencing a creepy chill down my spine whenever this or that new book of his touched my hand. The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates. Lean and arrogant, with some poisonous pun ever ready to fork out and quiver at you, and with a strange look of expectancy in his dull brown veiled eyes, this false wag had, I daresay, an irresistible effect on small rodents. Having mastered the art of verbal invention to perfection, he particularly prided himself on being a weaver of words, a title he valued higher than that of a writer; personally, I never could understand what was the good of thinking up books, of penning things that had not really happened in some way or other; and I remember once saying to him as I braved the mockery of his encouraging nods that, were I a writer, I should allow only my heart to have imagination, and for the rest rely upon memory, that long-drawn sunset shadow of one’s personal truth.
I had known his books before I knew him; a faint disgust was already replacing the aesthetic pleasure which I had suffered his first novel to give me. At the beginning of his career, it had been possible perhaps to distinguish some human landscape, some old garden, some dream- familiar disposition of trees through the stained glass of his prodigious prose... but with every new book the tints grew still more dense, the gules and purpure still more ominous; and today one can no longer see anything at all through that blazoned, ghastly rich glass, and it seems that were one to break it, nothing but a perfectly black void would face one’s shivering soul. But how dangerous he was in his prime, what venom he squirted, with what whips he lashed when provoked! The tornado of his passing satire left a barren waste where felled oaks lay in a row, and the dust still twisted, and the unfortunate author of some adverse review, howling with pain, spun like a top in the dust.
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Vladimir Nabokov (The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov)
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The old God, wholly “spirit,” wholly the high-priest, wholly perfect, is promenading his garden: he is bored and trying to kill time. Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.[21] What does he do? He creates man—man is entertaining.... But then he notices that man is also bored. God’s pity for the only form of distress that invades all paradises knows no bounds: so he forthwith creates other animals. God’s first mistake: to man these other animals were not entertaining—he sought dominion over them; he did not want to be an “animal” himself.—So God created woman. In the act he brought boredom to an end—and also many other things! Woman was the second mistake of God.—“Woman, at bottom, is a serpent, Heva”—every priest knows that; “from woman comes every evil in the world”— every priest knows that, too. Ergo, she is also to blame for science.... It was through woman that man learned to taste of the tree of knowledge.—What happened? The old God was seized by mortal terror. Man himself had been his greatest blunder; he had created a rival to himself; science makes men godlike—it is all up with priests and gods when man becomes scientific!—Moral: science is the forbidden per se; it alone is forbidden. Science is the first of sins, the germ of all sins, the original sin. This is all there is of morality.—“Thou shall not know”:—the rest follows from that.—God’s mortal terror, however, did not hinder him from being shrewd. How is one to protect one’s self against science? For a long while this was the capital problem. Answer: Out of paradise with man! Happiness, leisure, foster thought—and all thoughts are bad thoughts!—Man must not think.—And so the priest invents distress, death, the mortal dangers of childbirth, all sorts of misery, old age, decrepitude, above all, sickness—nothing but devices for making war on science! The troubles of man don’t allow him to think.... Nevertheless—how terrible!—, the edifice of knowledge begins to tower aloft, invading heaven, shadowing the gods—what is to be done?—The old God invents war; he separates the peoples; he makes men destroy one another (—the priests have always had need of war....). War—among other things, a great disturber of science!—Incredible! Knowledge, deliverance from the priests, prospers in spite of war.—So the old God comes to his final resolution: “Man has become scientific—there is no help for it: he must be drowned!”...
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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Dr Silay said the poor girl should have a Sunni Muslim funeral, but he thinks the family were probably secretly Yazidi, because she said you were her Peacock Angel,” Joannes said.
“She said crazy things like that,” I said. “What’s the difference between Muslim and Yazidi?”
“Well, Muslims here refer to Yazidi as devil worshippers, but that’s too simple, a lot of cultural baggage, as always,” Joannes said. “And I’m no expert, but I think their God is much like anyone else’s. They don’t believe in an evil entity like Satan, they believe all evil is man made, but we have the choice to be good or evil. The Peacock Angel embodies all that is good, a representation of God, so she must have really respected you. And I think they have some form of reincarnation too, not sure about that. I’m sorry for my hostility towards you last night, you didn’t deserve it,” Joannes said.
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Gerard Cappa (Blood from a Shadow (Con Maknazpy, #1))
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A businessman buys a business and tries to operate it. He does everything that he knows how to do but just cannot make it go. Year after year the ledger shows red, and he is not making a profit. He borrows what he can, has a little spirit and a little hope, but that spirit and hope die and he goes broke. Finally, he sells out, hopelessly in debt, and is left a failure in the business world. A woman is educated to be a teacher but just cannot get along with the other teachers. Something in her constitution or temperament will not allow her to get along with children or young people. So after being shuttled from one school to another, she finally gives up, goes somewhere and takes a job running a stapling machine. She just cannot teach and is a failure in the education world. I have known ministers who thought they were called to preach. They prayed and studied and learned Greek and Hebrew, but somehow they just could not make the public want to listen to them. They just couldn’t do it. They were failures in the congregational world. It is possible to be a Christian and yet be a failure. This is the same as Israel in the desert, wandering around. The Israelites were God’s people, protected and fed, but they were failures. They were not where God meant them to be. They compromised. They were halfway between where they used to be and where they ought to be. And that describes many of the Lord’s people. They live and die spiritual failures. I am glad God is good and kind. Failures can crawl into God’s arms, relax and say, “Father, I made a mess of it. I’m a spiritual failure. I haven’t been out doing evil things exactly, but here I am, Father, and I’m old and ready to go and I’m a failure.” Our kind and gracious heavenly Father will not say to that person, “Depart from me—I never knew you,” because that person has believed and does believe in Jesus Christ. The individual has simply been a failure all of his life. He is ready for death and ready for heaven. I wonder if that is what Paul, the man of God, meant when he said: [No] other foundation can [any] man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he should receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15). I think that’s what it means, all right. We ought to be the kind of Christian that cannot only save our souls but also save our lives. When Lot left Sodom, he had nothing but the garments on his back. Thank God, he got out. But how much better it would have been if he had said farewell at the gate and had camels loaded with his goods. He could have gone out with his head up, chin out, saying good riddance to old Sodom. How much better he could have marched away from there with his family. And when he settled in a new place, he could have had “an abundant entrance” (see 2 Pet. 1:11). Thank God, you are going to make it. But do you want to make it in the way you have been acting lately? Wandering, roaming aimlessly? When there is a place where Jesus will pour “the oil of gladness” on our heads, a place sweeter than any other in the entire world, the blood-bought mercy seat (Ps. 45:7; Heb. 1:9)? It is the will of God that you should enter the holy of holies, live under the shadow of the mercy seat, and go out from there and always come back to be renewed and recharged and re-fed. It is the will of God that you live by the mercy seat, living a separated, clean, holy, sacrificial life—a life of continual spiritual difference. Wouldn’t that be better than the way you are doing it now?
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A.W. Tozer (The Crucified Life: How To Live Out A Deeper Christian Experience)
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The second of these quaternios is the negative of the first; it is its shadow. By “shadow” I mean the inferior personality, the lowest levels of which are indistinguishable from the instinctuality of an animal. This is a view that can be found at a very early date, in the idea of the προσϕύης ψʋχή, the ‘excrescent soul’32 of Isidorus.33 We also meet it in Origen, who speaks of the animals contained in man.34 Since the shadow, in itself, is unconscious for most people, the snake would correspond to what is totally unconscious and incapable of becoming conscious, but which, as the collective unconscious and as instinct, seems to possess a peculiar wisdom of its own and a knowledge that is often felt to be supernatural. This is the treasure which the snake (or dragon) guards, and also the reason why the snake signifies evil and darkness on the one hand and wisdom on the other. Its unrelatedness, coldness, and dangerousness express the instinctuality that with ruthless cruelty rides roughshod over all moral and any other human wishes and considerations and is therefore just as terrifying and fascinating in its effects as the sudden glance of a poisonous snake.
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C.G. Jung (Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (Collected Works, Vol 9ii))
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No, Miller, I don’t myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins—not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance—you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The
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Willa Cather (The Professor's House)
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As children we got so we could tell time by the sun pretty well, and would know by the light in the room when we opened our eyes that it was seven o'clock and time to get up for school, and later that it was almost ten and then almost noon and almost three o'clock and time to be dismissed. School ran strictly by clocks, the old Regulators that Mr. Hamburger was always fiddling with, adding and subtracting paper clips on the pendulum to achieve perfect time, but we were sensitive to light, knowing how little was available to us as winter came on, and always knew what time it was - as anyone will who leads a regular life in a familiar place. My poor great-grandpa,when his house burned down when Grandma left the bread baking in the summer kitchen oven to go visit the Berges and they built the new one facing west instead of south: they say he was confused the rest of his life and never got straightened out even when he set up his bed in the parlor ( which faced north as his former bedroom had): he lived in a twilight world for some time and then moved in his mind to the house he'd grown up in, and in the end didn't know one day from another until he died." Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," but there's more than one kind of of shadow, and when a man loses track, it can kill him. Not even the siren could have saved my great-grandpa. He died of misdirection.
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Garrison Keillor (Lake Wobegon Days)
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This bold energetic man of rare intelligence and enterprise must also be understood as a man undone by his own deep flaws. He was known to drink to grievous excess, for example, which often turned him volatile and violent. On the other hand, his evil repute has been wildly exaggerated by careless journalists and their local informants, who seek to embellish their limited acquaintance with a “desperado”; with the result that the real man has been virtually entombed by tale and legend which since his death has petrified as myth. The most lurid view of Mr. Watson is the one perpetuated by the Islanders themselves, for as Dickens observed after his visit to this country, “These Americans do love a scoundrel.” Because his informants tend to imagine that the darkest interpretation is the one the writer wishes to hear, the popular accounts (until now, there have been no others) are invariably sensational as well as speculative: the hard facts, not to speak of “truth,” are missing. Also, this “Bloody Watson” material relates only to his final years in southwest Florida; one rarely encounters any reference to South Carolina, where Edgar Artemas Watson passed his boyhood, nor to the years in the Indian Country (always excepting his alleged role in the slaying of Belle Starr), nor even to the Fort White district of Columbia County in north Florida where he farmed in early manhood, married all three of his wives, and spent almost half of the fifty-five years of his life.
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Peter Matthiessen (Shadow Country)
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The only way to avoid encountering someone is to follow him (according to a principle opposed to the principle of the labyrinth, where you follow someone so that you do not lose him). Implicit in the situation, however, is the dramatic moment when the one being followed, suddenly intuiting, suddenly becoming conscious that there is someone behind him, swings round and spots his pursuer. Then the rules are reversed, and the hunter becomes the hunted (for there is no escaping laterally). The only truly dramatic point is this unexpected turning-round of the other, who insists upon knowing and damns the consequences.
This reversal does in fact occur in the Venice scenario. The man comes towards her and asks her: 'What do you want?' She wants nothing. No mystery story, no love story. This answer is intolerable, and implies possible murder, possible death. Radical otherness always embodies the risk of death.
S.'s anxiety revolves entirely around this violent revelation: the possibility of getting herself unmasked - the very thing she is trying to avoid. 'I cannot go on following him. He must be uneasy, he must be wondering if I am here, behind him - surely he is thinking about me now - so I shall have to keep track of him in some other way.'
S. could have met this man, seen him, spoken to him. But in that case she would never have produced this secret form of the existence of the Other. The Other is the one whose destiny one becomes, not by making his acquaintance in difference and dialogue but by entering into him as into something secret, something forever separate. Not by engaging in a conversation with him as interlocutor, but by entering into him as his shadow, as his double, as his image, by embracing the Other the better to wipe out his tracks, the better to strip him of his shadow. The Other is never the one with whom we communicate: he is the one whom we follow - and who follows us.
The other is never naturally the other: the other must be rendered other by being seduced, by being made alien to himself, even by being destroyed - if there is no alternative (but in fact there are subtler ways of achieving this end).
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Jean Baudrillard (The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena)
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8 THE JOURNEY TO Skoda took three days, for the company traveled warily. Acuas told Decado that following the slaying of the soldiers, the Delnoch fortress commander had sent patrols throughout Skultik and the surrounding countryside, while to the south legion riders scouted the lands for rebels. Tenaka took time to speak with the leaders of the Thirty, for despite the many legends, he knew little of their order. According to the stories, the Thirty were semigods with awesome powers who chose to die in wars against evil. The last time they had appeared had been at Dros Delnoch, when the albino Serbitar had stood beside the Earl of Bronze and defied the hordes of Ulric, the greatest Nadir warlord of all time. But though Tenaka questioned the leaders, he learned little. They were courteous and polite—even distantly friendly—but their answers floated above his head like clouds beyond the grasp of common men. Decado was no different; he would merely smile and change the subject. Tenaka was not a religious man, yet he felt ill at ease among these warrior-priests and his mind constantly returned to the words of the blind seeker. “Of gold and ice and shadow …” The man had predicted that the trio would come together. And they had. He had also foreseen the danger of the Templars. On the first night of their journey Tenaka approached the elderly Abaddon, and the two walked away from the fire together. “I saw you in Skultik,” said Tenaka. “You were being attacked by a Joining.” “Yes. I apologize for the deceit.” “What was the reason for it?” “It was a test, my son. But not merely of you—of ourselves.” “I do not understand,” said Tenaka. “It is not necessary that you should. Do not fear us, Tenaka. We are here to help you in whatever way we can.” “Why?” “Because it serves the Source.” “Can you not answer me without religious riddles? You are men. What do you gain from this war?” “Nothing in this world.” “You know why I came here?” “Yes, my son. To purge your mind of guilt and grief, to drown it in Ceska’s blood.” “And now?” “Now you are caught up in forces beyond your control. Your grief is assuaged by your love for Renya, but the guilt remains. You did not obey the call—you left your friends to be butchered by the Joinings of Ceska. You ask yourself if it would have been different had you come. Could you have defeated the Joinings? You torment yourself thus.” “Could I have defeated the Joinings?” “No,
”
”
David Gemmell (The King Beyond the Gate (The Drenai Saga #2))
“
Then he went up to the window. His heart began pounding excitedly when he turned back the yellow linen of the curtain.
An enchantingly beautiful spectacle was revealed before him — although today he immediately noticed that there was something strange in the entire aspect of this extensive and excellently arranged Garden. Precisely what amazed him he was still unable to say right away, and he began to examine the Garden attentively.
What was there so unpleasant in its beauty? Why was the Youth's heart trembling so painfully?
Was it that everything in the enchanted Garden was too exact. All the paths were laid out geometrically, and all were of the same width, and all were covered with precisely the same amount of yellow sand; the plants were all arranged with exaggerated orderliness; the trees were trimmed in the form of spheres, cones and cylinders; the flowers were arranged according to the various shades so that their composition was pleasing to the eye, but for some reason or other this wounded the soul.
But giving it careful thought, what was there unpleasant in that orderliness which merely bore witness to the careful attention which someone paid to the Garden?
Of course there was no reason for this to cause the strange apprehension which oppressed the Youth. But it was in something else as yet incomprehensible to the Youth.
One thing was for certain, though, that this Garden did not resemble any other garden which the Youth had happened to see in his time. Here he saw giant flowers of an almost too brilliant color — at times it seemed that many-colored fires were burning in the midst of the luxuriant greenery — brown and black stalks of creeping growths, thick like tropical serpents; leaves of a strange shape and immeasurable size, whose greeness seemed to be unnaturally brilliant.
Heady and languid fragrances wafted through the window in gentle waves, breaths of vanilla, frankincense and bitter almond, sweet and bitter, ecstatic and sad, like some joyous funereal mysterium.
The Youth felt the tender yet lively touches of the gentle wind. But in the Garden it seemed as if the wind had no strength and lay exhausted on the tranquil green grass and in the shadows beneath the bushes of the strange growths. And because the trees and grass of the strange Garden were breathlessly quiet and could not hear the softly blowing wind above them and did not reply to it, they seemed to be inanimate. And thus they were deceitful, evil and hostile to man.
("The Poison Garden")
”
”
Valery Bryusov (Silver Age of Russian Culture (An Anthology))
“
The Old Issue
October 9, 1899
“HERE is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets,
“Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
“It is the King—the King we schooled aforetime !”
(Trumpets in the marshes—in the eyot at Runnymede!)
“Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,” peal the Trumpets,
“Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
“It is the King!”—inexorable Trumpets—
(Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)
“He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre,” warn the Trumpets,
“He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will.
“Hard die the Kings—ah hard—dooms hard!” declare the Trumpets,
Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill!
Ancient and Unteachable, abide—abide the Trumpets!
Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings
Clamour over ocean of the harsh, pursuing Trumpets—
Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings!
All we have of freedom, all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—
Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.
Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.
Till our fathers ’stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.
So they bought us freedom—not at little cost
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost,
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.
Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure.
Whining “He is weak and far”; crying “Time shall cure.”,
(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.)
Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace.
Suffer not the old King here or overseas.
They that beg us barter—wait his yielding mood—
Pledge the years we hold in trust—pawn our brother’s blood—
Howso’ great their clamour, whatsoe’er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!
Here is naught unproven—here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.
He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.
He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.
He shall break his judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.
He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers ’neath our window, lest we mock the King—
Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.
Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.
We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use.
We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.
Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.
Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old—
Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain—
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.
Here is naught at venture, random nor untrue—
Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew.
Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid:
Step for step and word for word—so the old Kings did!
Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read.
Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed—
All the right they promise—all the wrong they bring.
Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King!
”
”
Rudyard Kipling
“
CHAPTER II—THE LOWEST DEPTHS There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined; each one is for himself. The I in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and gnaws. The social Ugolino is in this gulf. The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost phantoms, are not occupied with universal progress; they are ignorant both of the idea and of the word; they take no thought for anything but the satisfaction of their individual desires. They are almost unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible obliteration. They have two mothers, both step-mothers, ignorance and misery. They have a guide, necessity; and for all forms of satisfaction, appetite. They are brutally voracious, that is to say, ferocious, not after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal affiliation, dizzy creation, logic of darkness. That which crawls in the social third lower level is no longer complaint stifled by the absolute; it is the protest of matter. Man there becomes a dragon. To be hungry, to be thirsty—that is the point of departure; to be Satan—that is the point reached. From that vault Lacenaire emerges. We have just seen, in Book Fourth, one of the compartments of the upper mine, of the great political, revolutionary, and philosophical excavation. There, as we have just said, all is pure, noble, dignified, honest. There, assuredly, one might be misled; but error is worthy of veneration there, so thoroughly does it imply heroism. The work there effected, taken as a whole has a name: Progress. The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths, hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this point, and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be dissipated, the great cavern of evil. This cavern is below all, and is the foe of all. It is hatred, without exception. This cavern knows no philosophers; its dagger has never cut a pen. Its blackness has no connection with the sublime blackness of the inkstand. Never have the fingers of night which contract beneath this stifling ceiling, turned the leaves of a book nor unfolded a newspaper. Babeuf is a speculator to Cartouche; Marat is an aristocrat to Schinderhannes. This cavern has for its object the destruction of everything. Of everything. Including the upper superior mines, which it execrates. It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social order; it undermines philosophy, it undermines human thought, it undermines civilization, it undermines revolution, it undermines progress. Its name is simply theft, prostitution, murder, assassination. It is darkness, and it desires chaos. Its vault is formed of ignorance. All the others, those above it, have but one object—to suppress it. It is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their organs simultaneously, by their amelioration of the real, as well as by their contemplation of the absolute. Destroy the cavern Ignorance and you destroy the lair Crime. Let us condense, in a few words, a part of what we have just written. The only social peril is darkness. Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there converted into evil.
”
”
Anonymous
“
order a bottle of wine, drink a toast to his wife’s pregnancy, and forget all about Jackson for a few hours. Instead, he paid his bill and headed out. The warrant for Logjam was a month old and no dealer could stay out of sight much longer than that before his customers migrated to a new supplier. Logjam would have resurfaced by now. The first place he visited was a washout. So was the second. He moved on to a zydeco joint. It stank of flat beer and stale smoke. The customers paid him little heed as he nursed a Canadian Club and ginger at the bar. He hadn’t long to wait until he spotted who held the concession. The bartender handed three customers a complimentary book of matches each as he set down their drinks. Two of them already had cigarettes lit, their lighters squared neatly on top of their cigarette packets. Val called him over. “I’m looking for a friend of mine.” The man eyeballed him. “A guy like you has no friends.” “His name’s Logjam. Have you seen him recently?” The bartender wiped the zinc counter with a sponge cloth. “Never heard of him. Does he come in here?” Val set his shield on the bar. “Have you
”
”
A.J. Davidson (An Evil Shadow (Val Bosanquet Mystery #1))
“
We were taught, growing up, that man was basically good, but that evil is a force that must be resisted. Although you learn about the Holocaust in school, how is a kid supposed to come to grips with the notion that human beings could be so evil as to trap and incinerate millions of their fellow human beings? This is not a rhetorical question; the answer is far from simple. The Nazi ideology dehumanized Jews to such a point that the industry of mass murder relied on numbed obedience. Did Hitler’s volcanic hatred seep like acid into the soul of the Nazis who ran Auschwitz and other death camps? How did mass brainwashing happen? My head felt like it was exploding. The message of the museum, “Never again,” kept reverberating in my mind. We can’t let this happen again. And then the realization came that we had done something like this in America with slavery. The systemic evil of Nazism was the closest thing to the Southern society that relied on slave labor. I was torn by the connection between these two realities of history, different in time and place, but with a common root, a warped sense that some people are superior to others, a supremacy trapped in its own frozen heart.
”
”
Mitch Landrieu (In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History)
“
We can only guess that he fears us, which reveals him to be evil, for only an evil man kills those he fears.
”
”
Pierre Grimbert (Shadow of the Ancients (Secret of Ji #3))
“
[T]he problem for god was the same as the problem for the human ego. For even God's universe had spawned the Devil, who arises not so much from his own independent malice as from God's 'arrogance' in assuming omnipotent kingship and identifying himself with unalloyed goodness. The Devil is god's unconsciously produced shadow. Naturally, God is not allowed to be responsible for the origin of evil, for the connection between the two lies in the unconscious. Man says, 'I didn't mean to hurt you, but my temper got the better of me, I shall try to control it in future.' And God says, 'I didn't mean there to be any evil, but my angel Lucifer brought it up of his own free will. In the future I will shut him up safely in hell.
”
”
Alan W. Watts (Nature, Man and Woman)
“
From this premise, the usual conclusions follow: humankind is now separated from the true and the real; its destiny is to arrive at the consummation intended for it by God; philosophers are here to help the rest of us understand what that consummation is. James’s particular conception of it was derived in part from his reading of Swedenborg and in part from a writer with whom Swedenborg was often paired in the nineteenth century, the French socialist Charles Fourier: ‘Man’s destiny on earth,’ as James expressed it in Substance and Shadow (1863), ‘…consists in the realization of a perfect society, fellowship, or brotherhood among men.’ The chief impediment to arriving at this redeemed state was belief in an independent selfhood (what Swedenborg called the ‘proprium’). James considered this belief ‘the great parental fount of all the evils that desolate humanity.’ Belief in selfhood was bad because it led some people to regard themselves as superior to other people.
”
”
Louis Menand (The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America)
“
Until that moment Vetch had watched him with an anxious dread, for he was not sure what had happened there in the dark land. He did not know if this was Ged in the boat with him, and his hand had been for hours ready to the anchor, to stave in the boat's planking and sink her there in midsea, rather than carry back to the harbors of Earthsea the evil thing that he feared might have taken Ged's look and form. Now when he saw his friend and heard him speak, his doubt vanished. And he began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark. In the Creation of Ea, which is the oldest song, it is said, "Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky." That song Vetch sang aloud now as he held the boat westward, going before the cold wind of the winter night that blew at their backs from the vastness of the Open Sea.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1))
“
Psalm 108 (109) 1For the End; a psalm by David.†ω O God, do not pass over my praise in silence, 2 For the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful man opened against me; They spoke against me with a deceitful tongue; 3 And they surrounded me with words of hatred, And warred against me without cause. 4 Instead of loving me, they falsely accused me, But I continued to pray; 5 So they repaid me evil for good, And hatred for my love. 6 Set a sinner over him, And let the devil stand at his right hand. 7 And when he is judged, may he go forth condemned, And let his prayer become sin. 8 Let his days be very few, And may a different man receive his office; 9 Let his children be fatherless And his wife a widow; 10 Let his children wander about and be beggars; Let them be cast out of their houses. 11 Let the creditor search out whatever possessions he has; Let strangers plunder his labors; 12 Let there be no helper for him, Nor a compassionate one for his fatherless children; 13 Let his children be utterly destroyed; In a single generation, let his name be blotted out. 14 May the lawlessness of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, And may the sin of his mother not be blotted out; 15 Let them be continually before the Lord, And may the remembrance of them be utterly destroyed from the earth, 16 Because he did not remember to show mercy, But persecuted a poor and needy man, And one pierced to the heart, that he might kill him. 17 And he loved cursing, and it came to him, And he did not desire blessing, so it shall be far from him. 18 So he clothed himself with cursing like a garment, And it entered like water into his bowels And like oil into his bones; 19 Let it be for him like a garment that clothes him, And like a belt that girds him continually. 20 This is the work of those who falsely accuse me before the Lord, And of those who speak evil things against my soul. 21 But You, O Lord, O Lord, deal mercifully with me for Your name's sake, For Your mercy is good. 22 Save me, for I am poor and needy, And my heart is troubled within me. 23 I was removed like a shadow when it declines; I was shaken off like the locusts. 24 My knees were weak from fasting, And my flesh was changed because of the oil. 25 And I became an object of reproach to them; They saw me; they shook their heads. 26 Help me, O Lord my God; Save me according to Your mercy; 27 Then let them know this is Your hand, And You, O Lord, did this. 28 They themselves shall curse, but You shall bless; Let those who rise up against me be put to shame, But let Your servant be glad. 29 Let those who falsely accuse me be clothed with shame, And let them be covered with their dishonor like a double cloak. 30 I will give thanks to the Lord abundantly with my mouth, And in the midst of many I will praise Him, 31 Because He stood at the right hand of a poor man, To save me from those who persecute my soul.
”
”
Anonymous (The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World)
“
Have you ever wronged a man . . . just to do him harm? Or have you always had a reason?’
Kaspar answered quickly. ‘There was always a reason.’
‘There you have it,’ said Samas as he sat down. He motioned for Kaspar to fetch over a cup of water for him. ‘You would never look at yourself as “evil” no matter what the other fellow thought of what you did. It’s in our nature. And that’s the great secret of evil. It is never viewed as evil by those who perpetrate the evil.
”
”
Raymond E. Feist (Exile's Return (Conclave of Shadows, #3))
“
Creation is light and shadow both, else no picture is possible. The good and evil of maya must ever alternate in supremacy. If joy were ceaseless here in this world, would man ever desire another? Without suffering, he scarcely cares to recall that he has forsaken his eternal home. Pain is a prod to remembrance. The way of escape is through wisdom. The tragedy of death is unreal; those who shudder at it are like an ignorant actor who dies of fright on the stage when nothing more has been fired at him than a blank cartridge. My sons are children of light; they will not sleep forever in delusion.
”
”
Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi (Complete Edition))
“
Revelation has been within us since the origin of the World.
Let us not, indeed, be mistaken: since the origin of the world, all possibilities and all future ideas have been in existence, as seeds of potential. It is, therefore, not to the future that it is necessary to look for revelation but the power of our memory. The poet of the enlightened land who conceived in very ancient times the symbol of the Earthly Paradise: God saying, after Adam had touched the Tree of Science, “He has become like one of us, knowing good and evil”—which is to say, the for and the against, the androgynous idea—“now we must make sure that he does not touch the Tree of Life and live forever”, thus condemning man to material labor; was several thousand years ahead, not only of his own time, but of ours.
Humankind, as a whole, cannot follow the fulgurant course of an Idea; its progress is slower and “forward thinkers”—precursors—have to have the patience to wait until everyone else’s ideas have caught up with theirs: a patience often difficult for the thinker who, after being madly elevated, must return to his point of departure and, estranged by what he has seen, feels like a foreigner visiting his own world.
The usefulness of precursors.
Is it necessary to conclude that these forward thinkers, these bold recognitions, are useless? Quite the contrary, for it is in bringing superhuman heroes to life, imagining the reality of facts whose prototypes remain latent in the world of ideas, that poets and researchers construct the frame of the world. Their exceptional follies of today will become the banality of tomorrow, and the crowd will eventually hasten to take the presently-accessible steps which they are carving out in the clouds—and that crowd, in its blind course, will have been upraised without knowing it.
Without changing position, the opposition of yesterday becomes the reaction of tomorrow, the exception becomes the law in its turn; only the Idea is immutable through its successive incarnations, its changes of material form: the relativities, in a word, that we call Life. It is for us to extract the substance from the shadow and seize the eternal element of things.
”
”
Gaston De Pawlowski (Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension)
“
O, the thrill when each knows its own guilt, travels the thorny paths. Thus did he find the white form of the child in the thorn bush, bleeding after the cloak of its bride-groom. Yet he stood before her buried in his steely hair, mute and suffering. O, the radiant angels scattered by the purple night winds. Long nights did he dwell in a crystal cave and leprosy grew all silvery upon his brow. A shadow, he walked down the boundary path beneath autumnal stars. Snow fell and the blue darkness filled the house. As a blind man's, Father's harsh voice resounded and called up dread. Woe, the bowed appearance of women. Beneath petrified hands fruit and implements mouldered to the appalled race. A wolf devoured the first-born and my sisters fled into dark gardens to skeletal old men. A deranged seer, that man sang by the derelict walls and God's wind consumed his voice. O ecstasy of death. O you children of a midnight race. All silver the evil flowers of the blood shimmer about that man's brow, the cold moon within his broken eyes. O, the creatures of night; O, those who are accursed.
”
”
Georg Trakl (Poems and Prose)
“
At all these studies Ged was apt, and within a month was bettering lads who had been a year at Roke before him. Especially the tricks of illusion came to him so easily that it seemed he had been born knowing them and needed only to be reminded. The Master Hand was a gentle and lighthearted old man, who had endless delight in the wit and beauty of the crafts he taught; Ged soon felt no awe of him, but asked him for this spell and that spell, and always the Master smiled and showed him what he wanted. But one day, having it in mind to put Jasper to shame at last, Ged said to the Master Hand in the Court of Seeming, 'Sir, all these charms are much the same; knowing one, you know them all. And as soon as the spell-weaving ceases, the illusion vanishes. Now if I make a pebble into a diamond-' and he did so with a word and a flick of his wrist 'what must I do to make that diamond remain diamond? How is the changing-spell locked, and made to last?'
The Master Hand looked at the jewel that glittered on Ged's palm, bright as the prize of a dragon's hoard. The old Master murmured one word, 'Tolk,' and there lay the pebble, no jewel but a rough grey bit of rock. The Master took it and held it out on his own hand. 'This is a rock; tolk in the True Speech,' he said, looking mildly up at Ged now. 'A bit of the stone of which Roke Isle is made, a little bit of the dry land on which men live. It is itself. It is part of the world. By the Illusion-Change you can make it look like a diamond -or a flower or a fly or an eye or a flame-' The rock flickered from shape to shape as he named them, and returned to rock. 'But that is mere seeming. Illusion fools the beholder's senses; it makes him see and hear and feel that the thing is changed. But it does not change the thing. To change this rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world. It can be done. Indeed it can be done. It is the art of the Master Changer, and you will learn it, when you are ready to learn it. But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow...'
He looked down at the pebble again. 'A rock is a good thing, too, you know,' he said, speaking less gravely. 'If the Isles of Earthsea were all made of diamond, we'd lead a hard life here. Enjoy illusions, lad, and let the rocks be rocks.' He smiled, but Ged left dissatisfied.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizard Of Earthsea)
“
The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been, and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end. C. G. JUNG
”
”
Connie Zweig (Meeting the Shadow)
“
Within each man a shadow exists.
The shadow of his past.
The shadow of his future.
And the shadow of all the things he
Could have been.
”
”
R.M. Engelhardt (OF SPIRIT, ASH & BONE POEMS PARABLES R.M. ENGELHARDT)
“
Do not worry over your past misdeeds—for worry itself breeds demons—but eliminate them from your aura, planting instead good seeds with constructive labors. Feel your own personal responsibility in this problem, for the realization of responsibility is good for the soul. Demonstrate this acceptance of responsibility to the higher powers of Cosmos, for when your light shines out, the spirits of evil must slink into the corners and cover their faces with the shadow of their cloaks.
”
”
Manly P. Hall (Magic: A Treatise on Natural Occultism)
“
Am I Not Worthy of Continual Worship? Can you learn to thank Me for everything? I have called you out of darkness to experience the light. I have tremendous plans for you, and I intend to build you in My love. Yet I allow many trials to happen in order to grow you and stretch your faith. How can gold be proven valuable unless it is tested? Beloved, do not hate My tests, but accept them wholeheartedly. I have determined to bless you greater than the trial you may suffer. Not every trial have I desired for you. Not every hardship have I created. I create that which stretches you for growth. But there are deep hardships that are not given by My hand. Nor were they in My desire for you. Nevertheless, I have allowed them and will comfort you in the midst of them. I will be a shield to you and establish a new blessing for you once again. I am able to create good from evil. Consider the heart of man! For out of the wicked, I have brought forth repentance and life. Consider Job’s life. Who destroyed him? Was it My hand or the Satan, who pressed Me for an opportunity? It was My enemy, no doubt. And you have seen the blessing I gave Job afterward. You have seen the end I had desired for Him. Indeed, I am very compassionate and full of mercy. But Job, in the midst of his pain, praised Me. Can you do this? Can you thank Me for hardship? The hardship I do lay on a man’s shoulders is for eternal life. Now, having this wisdom, can you thank Me through your trials? Can you thank Me for them? When deep trials abound, can you still worship Me? I have only ever sought to bless you. Never has My heart been set on your destruction. So set your face to worship Me. Am I not worthy?
”
”
Adam Houge (Under the Shadow of the Almighty)
“
Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas.... Abraxas [is] life, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness. [Abraxas] is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning. It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness. It is holy begetting. It is love and love’s murder. It is the appearance and the shadow of man.
”
”
David H. Rosen (The Tao of Jung: The Way of Integrity (Compass))
“
This is the thing, I think often, that never occurs to you when you consider what it would be like to lose someone you love. That you would miss not just the flowers and kisses, but the totality of the experience. You miss the failures and little evils with as much desperation as you miss being held in the middle of the night.
”
”
Cody McFadyen (Shadow Man (Smoky Barrett, #1))
“
Evil is as evil does, gnome. Judge a man by his actions. By what he does. What he accomplishes. What he fights for and against. By what he holds dear. Those things define him. They mean so much more than any words he might spout and a thousandfold more than appearances or perceptions.
”
”
Glenn G. Thater (Shadow of Doom (The Harbinger of Doom Saga, #9))
“
The fire covered the field, the flames worked fast. I glanced over at Preston who was watching the destruction with a dark grin. The fire reflected in his eyes; shadows moved across his face illuminating the deep creases as he gazed ahead with great conviction. He looked evil. Was he evil? Lord knows he’s done evil. Or was he a man who thought he was doing the right thing, just reacting to situations and conditions that were thrust upon him? Each man is the protagonist of his own life. Always right in their own mind, altruistic and correct no matter what society deems acceptable. Nobody thinks they're evil. Nobody thinks they’re a bad person. All deeds, no matter how harmful or offensive to others can be rationalized in the perpetrators mind; perhaps that is the definition of evil? I looked away, who am I to judge? I thought. I don’t have the theological qualifications or the clean track record to deem anyone evil, he’s just a man. I focused back on the inferno.
Watching the fire spark and dance forming grinning malevolent shapes, I thought of the ancient Celtics when they’d set their world on fire with their Samhain bonfires; their unholy pagan ritual for summer’s end. That sacred night when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. The night of the great sacrifice. Blue-red flames licked the sky crackling and hissing their macabre cleansing cacophony that drew our unblinking stares and didn’t let go, it had us, it made us watch. Corynne clutched me close, her breathing was soft and warm; the air was beginning to cool. October was coming.
”
”
Chris Fraser (The Bookmaker)
“
A man who embraces the voice of evil when it whispers in his ear is no less evil than the whisperer.
”
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Orson Scott Card (The Shadow Quintet: Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, and Shadows in Flight (The Shadow Series))
“
...out of the counterfeiting of the black American's identity [in blackface minstrelsy] there arises a profound doubt in the white man's mind as to the authenticity of his own image of himself. He, after all, went into the business when he refused the king's shilling and revolted. He had put on a mask of his own, as it were...For the ex-colonials, the declaration of an American identity meant the assumption of a mask, and it imposed not only the discipline of national self-consciousness, it gave Americans an ironic awareness of the joke that always lies between appearance and reality, between the discontinuity of social tradition and that sense of the past which clings to the mind. And perhaps even an awareness of the joke that society is man's creation, not God's. Americans began their revolt from the English fatherland when they dumped the tea into Boston Harbor, masked as Indians, and the mobility of the society created in this limitless space has encouraged the use of the mask for good and evil ever since.
”
”
Ralph Ellison (Shadow and Act)
“
every man’s admirable qualities (kindness, charm, intelligence, cute butt--you name it) had an evil twin waiting in the shadows to bite her in the ass when she’d least expected it. It hadn’t taken a Ph.D. in philosophy to teach Jessica James that virtue was just the flip side of vice. A
”
”
Kelly Oliver (Wolf (A Jessica James Mystery, #1))
“
The flower that dwelleth by the brooklet's brink
Is beautiful; but 't is its fragrant breath
That winneth us to love.
And like the spreading waves of fragrance
That circle round the flow'ret, so the heart
That hath it's life in holiness sends forth
An influence of sweetness to the world."
Let us remember that we are all casting the shadow of our real inner and outer life upon immortal souls
about us. And according to our character and life as holy or worldly,we are unconsciously influencing those around us for good or evil, touching them to issues of life or death.
******
We are apt to overlook this unconscious influence of our life, because it is so quiet and intangible. We seldom think of the power there is in the light of every day, because it is so gentle and common. An earthquake that comes thundering through the solid foundations of the earth and rocks a whole continent,startles the people with a sense of some mighty forces at work. And yet the light of every morning that comes so gently as not to wake an infant in its cradle, is mightier in it's influence than an earthquake. The greatest powers are ever those which lie back of the noises and commotions of nature. We hear the rustling leaves of the forest swept by autumnal winds, but the sublime constellations make no
noise. We hear the sparkling of bonfires in the street, but who ever heard the sun shine? So in the moral world, the quiet influence of a good man, as it follows him day by day as his shadow, and falls silently on the children at home, or upon friends on the streets, in the places of business, or in the social circle,is often more potential for good than his voluntary and positive efforts of usefulness - just as the great silent powers of nature are mightier than the noises of the street.
Friends of our passing life and ways,
Now present to our view;
These garnered thoughts, of leisure days,
We dedicate to you.
****
We ask not for posthumous fame
From loving friends apart,
But kindly thoughts about our name,
- The mem'ry of the heart. -
Afternoon by Theophilus Stork D. D. 1874
”
”
Theophilus Stork
“
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: It is founded on our thoughts,
It is made up of our thoughts.
If a man speaks or acts with an evil thoughts,
Pain follows him as the wheel follows
The foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: It is founded on our thoughts,
It is made up of our thoughts.
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
Happiness follows him
Like a shadow that never leaves him
"He abused me, he beat me,
he defeated me, he robbed me,"--
In those who harbor such thoughts
Hatred will never cease
"He abused me, he beat me,
He defeated me, he robbed me,"--
In those who do not harbor such thoughts
Hatred will cease.
For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; Hatred ceases by love; this is an old rule.
”
”
Dhammapada
“
All of this was too much. I tried to remember my life back at HDF, when I was a boring human in love with my best friend, who I thought didn't feel the same. And I thought that was complicated.
Now my best friend was part fae, connected to the man I brought back to life because of powers shoved into me from an evil queen, a cursed witch, and a probably half insane Dae.
The same person trying to kill me now.
We all were being babyset by a dead druid, using the body of an old gypsy seer who had been shot multiple times tonight.
"My life." I scoured at my face in utter disbelief, realizing I hadn't even gone into my friends standing around me and all their issues.
”
”
Stacey Marie Brown (Shadow Lands (Savage Lands, #6))
“
Elise Oursa: I think the dark man is like a spirit of manifestation. I don’t mean manifestation like “let me help you get a job.” But a cosmic force of everything that comes into existence, is how I see it. And within that, it’s necessary to have demiurgic forces: of structure and laws and rules, and this is the way it should be. And it’s also necessary to have forces of darkness and chaos, which creates a dynamo of creation. I think it’s something that’s beyond good and evil, for sure. I think it offers the opportunity for integrating ourselves into our whole selves and revealing our hidden parts, our shadow parts that are there as well. And I think it’s clearly an initiation into some kind of otherness, into an acceptance of otherness.
”
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Darragh Mason (Song of the Dark Man: Father of Witches, Lord of the Crossroads)
“
Wendigo snarled and threw a handful of gravel up at Nello that clattered musically against her chest plate, but he made no effort to stand. He closed his eyes then and lay there laughing like a man insane. “Mara's out there! Your daddy's gonna burn! You're all going to burn beneath the shadow of her wings!
”
”
Ashley Finn Williams (Finding Ayohka)
“
I thought maybe he was human before, but I could tell then that he wasn’t. He was just blackness, pure, thick blackness, pressed against the glass. Staring at him felt like staring at concentrated evil.
”
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Dark Mistress Aurora (True Scary Stories: Volume One - The Shadow Man: Real Horror Mystery With A Twist)
“
But as I grabbed the light switch and turned it on, I saw a black figure pressed against the glass door. It was a tall man, his face pressed against the glass, his hands above his head, gripping the glass as well and his face was turned towards me like he had been watching me the entire time I was tiptoeing around in the darkness. I thought maybe he was human before, but I could tell then that he wasn’t. He was just blackness, pure, thick blackness, pressed against the glass. Staring at him felt like staring at concentrated evil.
”
”
Dark Mistress Aurora (True Scary Stories: Volume One - The Shadow Man: Real Horror Mystery With A Twist)
“
Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream. And so while the Concord thinkers were proclaiming man to be the indubitable child of God, Hawthorne was critically examining the question of evil as it appeared in the light of his own experience. It was the central fascinating problem of his intellectual life, and in pursuit of a solution he probed curiously into the hidden, furtive recesses of the soul.” Parrington’s disapproval of the enterprise is unmistakable.
”
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Lionel Trilling (The Liberal Imagination (New York Review Books Classics))