The Art of Life

C. S. Lewis:

I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can. To avert or postpone one particular war by wise policy, or to render one particular campaign shorter by strength and skill or less terrible by mercy to the conquered and the civilians is more useful than all the proposals for universal peace that have ever been made; just as the dentist who can stop one toothache has deserved better of humanity than all the men who think they have some scheme for producing a perfectly healthy race.

—C. S. Lewis, "Why I Am Not a Pacifist," in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 79.