There’s an argument I’ve run across that Faith is good, the ultimate good, the only real good; despair leads people to faith; therefore doing anything to reduce the amount of despair in the world is evil. I read that several time back in the ( IIRC ) 1980s in books on the subject of life extension; there was always some priest who’d be quoted something like that as a reason why extending the human lifespan is wrong.
A similar argument goes that “It is better to kill for Kali than it is to help people as an atheist, because at least the Kali cultist is acting out of faith and upholding it”; the latter is a paraphrase from memory of a bishop quoted in an article in a newspaper that I read as a teen.
A classic "It’s necessary for National Security and Preserving Our Freedoms style defense of evil. What makes it and similar claims an excuse is that they always contain the hidden assumption that the “necessary evil” really WAS necessary. And that the critics of the evil are weak, and should be kept ignorant. And it therefore can be used to justify anything at all, since there’s no attempt to actually prove necessity - it’s just asserted - and because critics are kept in the dark and ignored if they find out anyway.
Herbert West in the movie BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR when his partner Dan’s girlfriend accused him of blasphemy (not exact recollection)…
“Blasphemy? Against what? God? A God so repulsed by His Creation that He subjected them to death and decay? The only blasphemy is to wallow in mediocrity. I have taken the miserable refuse of your God’s failures and I have created something which the hand of man or the womb of woman could not conceive (points to “Bride”)… THIS! This is my creation!”
Dr. Herbert West: Blasphemy? Before what? God? A God repulsed by the miserable humanity He created in His own image? I will not be shackled by the failures of your God. The only blasphemy is to wallow in insignificance. I have taken refuse of your God’s failures and I have triumphed. There! THERE is my creation!
Dr. Herbert West: I created what no man’s mind nor woman’s womb could ever hope to achieve.
Considering it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, I think I actually did pretty well.
Of course the ends justify the means, if you accurately assess the ends. Should you run over the dog to save your family? Of course. Should you kill baby Hitler to prevent the Nazi Party? Of course.
Those who use that phrase in a moralistic tone (and many of them are my otherwise allies) haven’t thought it through.
Not exactly a quote, but the OP asked for fiction and real life evil…
The United States nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed hundreds of thousands to spare the millions it would have cost to invade Japan, on both sides.
Do I agree? yes.
Could I have made the decision? No
Hey, on the other side, the Nazis considered the purification of the human race a necessary evil for a greater good.
And for a direct quote, how about Osama bin Laden’s letter to the USA? It’s a really interesting read. The following is an excerpt immediately following a detailed list of American wrongs; in this section, bin Laden explains why attacks on American civilians are acceptable:
And from Star Wars fiction, Kreia in Knights of the Old Republic 2 defends the Dark Side (or, perhaps, defends neutrality) against excessive good when the protagonist attempts to Save the Galaxy Yet Again ™. Throughout the game, she has a far more interesting perspective on the Force and its practitioners than the ultrasimplistic Good vs Evil seen in the movies.
“And what is it you think you have accomplished? If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself … and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. You stole that struggle from them, cheapened it. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. And when they triumph, they will be even stronger for the victory.”
Indeed. Most people who object to it seem to consider “kill a hundred people to save a thousand” to be morally equivilant to “kill a hundred people to get a sandwich,” and the latter just as easily reached.
Anyways, my own quote (though I was beaten to the punch with the good doctor West. Blast!):
Turgidson advocates a further nuclear attack to prevent a Soviet response to Ripper’s attack]
General “Buck” Turgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed!
—Dr. Strangelove