"We can overcome evil with greater good"
About this Quote
Laura Bush’s public role was often to translate geopolitical urgency into domestic virtue: compassion, education, health, women’s rights. In the post-9/11 era especially, the language of “evil” was everywhere, a simplified moral grammar that made fear legible and action feel necessary. Her twist is the addition of “greater good,” a phrase that borrows the emotional clarity of a children’s book while hinting at a longer, calmer timeline than battlefield news cycles. It’s reassurance dressed as resolve.
The subtext is strategic: goodness is framed not as passive innocence but as an escalatory force, “greater” as in stronger, more durable, more legitimate. That matters when a country is asked to see itself as righteous while prosecuting wars, expanding surveillance, and absorbing casualties. In that light, the line reads as a moral alibi and a moral aspiration at once: it invites the public to believe that whatever darkness exists can be answered without becoming dark ourselves. Whether that’s a promise or a plea is the tension that makes it stick.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bush, Laura. (2026, January 18). We can overcome evil with greater good. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-can-overcome-evil-with-greater-good-12506/
Chicago Style
Bush, Laura. "We can overcome evil with greater good." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-can-overcome-evil-with-greater-good-12506/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We can overcome evil with greater good." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-can-overcome-evil-with-greater-good-12506/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.











