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To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface.
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Chapter V, paragraph 2, lines 1-5

 

Thomas Malthus

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It is with government, as with medicine. They have both but a choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty: And I repeat that government has but a choice of evils: In making this choice, what ought to be the object of the legislator? He ought to assure himself of two things; 1st, that in every case, the incidents which he tries to prevent are really evils; and 2ndly, that if evils, they are greater than those which he employs to prevent them.
There are then two things to be regarded ; the evil of the offence and the evil of the law; the evil of the malady and the evil of the remedy.
An evil comes rarely alone. A lot of evil cannot well fall upon an individual without spreading itself about him, as about a common centre. In the course of its progress we see it take different shapes: we see evil of one kind issue from evil of another kind; evil proceed from good and good from evil. All these changes, it is important to know and to distinguish; in this, in fact, consists the essence of legislation.

 

Jeremy Bentham

 

'The most common of all follies,' wrote H. L. Mencken, 'is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.' In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine the truth, and that illness and misfortune are caused and alleviated by spirits, ghosts, saints . . . and gods.

 

Steven Pinker

 

The Queen of England has more cause to procure the preservation of the Low Countries in their ancient estate in the obedience of the house of Burgundy than any other place hath...Now if the Low Countries should either be subdued to the Spaniards or possessed by the French, England cannot continue this manner of league. For if the Spaniard shall possess this country by conquest, as otherwise they cannot, then must they also govern it as conquers—that is build in every country and special towns, forts and castles which must be kept and guarded with Spaniards...To maintain these the King must continue great taxes...and there will be no reason to stop him but he will set what tax he listeth upon the commodities of England and so shall England wax poor to make him rich. And then England will have no remedy.

 

William Cecil

 

I am neither a saint nor a theologian. To me, good works are more important than theology. We all know that religion has been historically, and still is today, a cause of great evil as well as great good in human affairs. We have seen terrible wars and terrible persecutions conducted in the name of religion. We have also seen large numbers of people inspired by religion to lives of heroic virtue, bringing education and medical care to the poor, helping to abolish slavery and spread peace among nations. Religion amplifies the good and evil tendencies of individual souls.

 

Freeman Dyson

 

The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.

 

Thomas Malthus