C. S. Lewis Quotes

Badness is only spoiled goodness.

But, brothers, this biting of their toe-nails over what is the CAUSE of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchick. They don't go into what is the cause of GOODNESS, so why of the other shop?

Badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.

Good is to bee sought out, and evill attended.

The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on.

I feel it's in people's nature to want to stop evil and embrace the good.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.

It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.

In the end, I think people prefer the good to win rather than the bad.

All men are born good.

Great men are almost always bad men.

There are some acts of justice which corrupt those who perform them.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.

And one of the elders of the city , said , speak to us of good and evil. And he answered : You are good in countless ways , and you are not evil when you are not good .

If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.

For good is simple, evil manifold.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness and we emerge from the acquaintanceship better and more virtuous men.

Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.

Evil is not interesting. What is it, chopping off someone's head? We used to do that as kids, you know, you tear up paper dolls and stuff. I know everyone's done it in the history of the world, but maybe everybody was dumb and they were just looking for something interesting to do. What's really interesting and hard is being good.

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that a good man is more worthy of love than a bad one.

All badness is spoiled goodness. A bad apple is a good apple that became rotten. Because evil has no capital of its own, it is a parasite that feeds on goodness.

You can be good for the mere sake of goodness; you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness. You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong - only because cruelty is pleasant or useful to him, In other words, badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.