C. S. Lewis Evil Quotations

The descent to hell is easy and those who begin by worshipping power, soon worship evil.

Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' - or else not.

Badness is only spoiled goodness.

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back til you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' --or else not.

Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Good and evil increase at compound interest. That's why the little decisions we make every day are of infinite importance.

If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.

You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest.

Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.

Evil comes from the ABUSE of free will

Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.

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.

The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks

I am suffering incessant temptations to uncharitable thoughts at present; one of those black moods in which nearly all one's friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there should be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil.

We must beware of the Past, mustn't we? I mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and usually bad for us. Notice in Dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past! Not so the saved.

Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery.

Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.

But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.