human capacity for evil

The following quote is from Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, which he wrote after surviving eight years in the gulags (Soviet labor camps). Solzhenitsyn died yesterday, at the age of 89. The quote speaks to our common perception that genocides, wars, or atrocities can be overcome by simply taking down the perpetrators and 'rooting out evil in the world.' In this mindset, our own capacity for evil is often dangerously ignored.

"If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

-Alexander Solzhenitsyn