Scott Peck on evil:
"First, I have come to the conclusion that evil is real."
"Evil people hate the light because it reveals themselves to themselves. They hate goodness because it reveals their badness; they hate love because it reveals their laziness. They will destroy the light, the goodness, the love in order to avoid the pain of self-awareness. My second conclusion, then is that evil is laziness carried to it's ultimate, extraordinary extreme. As I have defined it, love is the antithesis of laziness."
"Truly evil people actively rather than passively avoid extending themselves. They will take any action in their power to protect their own laziness, to preserve the integrity of their own sick selves. Rather than nurturing others, they will actually destroy others in this cause. If necessary, they will even kill to avoid the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them."
"I define evil, then, as the exercise of political power-that is, the imposition of one's will by overt or covert coercion- in order to avoid extending one's self for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth. Ordinary laziness is nonlove; evil is antilove."
-from "The Road Less Travelled" pp 277-78