Two Evils

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

— C. S. Lewis.

4 Comments

  1. I like that quote too and have used it in the past. Still spending time reading through your old posts – you’ve got a lot of interesting stuff here, probably way beyond my level, but I just keep reading and doing searches on the stuff I have no clue about, lol

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 3:57 pm | Permalink
  2. Malcolm says

    Thanks! Older posts are less likely to be political — our predicament seemed less urgent to me back then.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 5:10 pm | Permalink
  3. Mangan says

    To C.S. Lewis, I say “Amen”.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
  4. Do you think Lewis tacitly assumes the “tyrant” doesn’t really know what will help the people? Does he mean to say that people who act badly in the belief they are doing good are worse than people who act badly but are under no such illusion?

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 11:41 pm | Permalink

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