Quotes about malice

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

— Edmund Burke

It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.

— Eric Hoffer

Malice is only another name for mediocrity.

— Patrick Kavanagh

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature -- the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan