a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right

Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge.

 

When a man is getting better he understands /more and more clearly [the evil //that is still left in him].

 

When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.

 

A moderately bad man knows () he is not very good:

a thoroughly bad man thinks () he is all right.

This is common sense, really.

 

You understand sleep /when you are awake, not while you are sleeping.

 

You can see mistakes in arithmetic /when your mind is working properly:

while you are making them you cannot see them.

 

You can understand the nature of drunkenness /when you are sober, not when you are drunk.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis