C.S. Lewis quote-of-the-week

“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 good and evil; bad people do not know about either.”

--Mere Christianity, book 3, ch. 4

A beautiful and ironic observation illustrating one of the many problems associated with self-righteousness, whether pagan or religious.