Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.

The quote argues that “evil” is not primarily a mysterious force but a moral failure that begins with objectification. Treating people as “things” means denying their inner life, dignity, and agency—making it easier to exploit, discard, or harm them without remorse. Pratchett’s phrasing suggests a slippery threshold: once a person becomes an object (a number, a stereotype, a means to an end), cruelty can be reframed as efficiency, necessity, or righteousness. The line functions as an ethical warning and a practical diagnostic: whenever language or systems reduce humans to instruments, the conditions for injustice are already in place.