Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

C. S. Lewis Quotes - Page 36

All Quotes Abuse Achievement Acting Adventure Affection Age Aging Aids Ambition Arguing Army Art Atheism Atheist Attitude Autumn Beer Belief Bible Change Character Charity Chastity Childhood Children Choices Christ Christianity Church Community Conscience Consciousness Country Creation Culture Darkness Death Defeat Democracy Depression Design Desire Destiny Determination Devil Difficulty Dignity Doubt Drama Dying Earth Easter Eating Education Effort Energy Envy Eternity Evidence Evil Evolution Excellence Exercise Expectations Faith Falling In Love Fashion Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Forgiveness Free Will Freedom Friends Friendship Frustration Fun Future Giving Giving Up Glory God Good Times Goodness Grace Gratitude Greek Grief Grieving Growing Up Growth Guilt Happiness Hate Hatred Healing Heart Heaven Hell Holiday Home Honesty Honor Horror House Humanity Humility Hurt Husband Imagination Impulse Independence Individuality Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Jesus Journey Joy Judgement Judging Justice Kindness Language Liberty Life Life And Death Listening Literature Live Life Loneliness Losing Loss Lost Love Love Lust Lying Magic Marriage Mediocrity Memories Mercy Moon Morality Morning Motivational Mountain Myth Nature New Beginnings Obedience Office Opportunity Pain Pain And Pleasure Passion Past Peace Perfection Personality Philosophy Plato Pleasure Poverty Praise Prayer Pride Progress Purpose Quality Reading Reality Redemption Reflection Religion Repentance Resurrection Risk Running Sacrifice Sadness Safety Sanity Satan School Scripture Shame Silence Silver Sin Slavery Sleep Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Struggle Study Suffering Sunrise Sunshine Surrender Tea Teaching Temptation Theology Time Today Training Tribulation True Love Truth Understanding Unity Universe Victory Virtue Vision Waiting Wall War Warrior Water Wife Wine Winter Wisdom Worship Writing

The old field of space, time, matter, and the senses is to be weeded, dug, and sown for a new crop. We may be tired of that old field: God is not.

The old field of space, time, matter, and the senses is to be weeded, dug, and sown for a new crop. We may be tired of that old field: God is not.

Tired, Space, May

C. S. Lewis (1996). “Miracles: A Preliminary Study”, Touchstone Books

When you give up a bit of work don't (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.

Giving Up, Writing, Thinking

It is important early in life to acquire the power of reading sense wherever you happen to be.

Reading, Important, Happens

Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue, but also (as they did not see) a school of vice. It is ambivalent. It makes good men better and bad men worse.

School, Men, Good Man

There is something which unites magic and applied science (technology) while separating them from the "wisdom" of earlier ages. For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline , and virtue. For the modern, the cardinal problem is how to conform reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is a technique.

Wise, Reality, Men

The doors of hell are locked from the inside!

Doors, Hell, Locked

Believe in God like you believe in the sunrise. Not because you can see it, but because you can see all it touches.

Believe, Sunrise, Like You

To admire Satan [in Paradise Lost] is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography.

Lying, Thinking, Giving

C.S. Lewis (2005). “A Preface to Paradise Lost”, p.9, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

History is a story written by the finger of God.

Stories, Fingers, Written

C. S. Lewis (2014). “Christian Reflections”, p.130, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

Pain, Real, Believe

As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only "as harmless as doves," but also "as wise as serpents." He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head.

Wise, Children, Heart

C.S. Lewis (1960). “Mere Christianity”

All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Inspirational, Adventure, Lasts

C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.187, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.

Christian, Pain, Speak

Who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed?

Hurt, Government, Shoes

C.S. Lewis (2005). “A Preface to Paradise Lost”, p.11, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, 'Look. Listen. Attend.

Nature, Looks, Spirit

C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one.

Majesty, Way, Taught

C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality.

Ideas, Savages, Would Be

C. S. Lewis (2009). “Mere Christianity”, p.13, Harper Collins

When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?

Mean, Thinking, Years

That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended - civilizations are built up - excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down.

Running, Selfish, Keys

C. S. Lewis (1952). “Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality”, Scribner Paper Fiction

In worship, God imparts himself to us.

Prayer, Worship, Worship God

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Fear, Children, Growing Up

C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The universe rings true whenever you fairly test it.

Tests, Fairness, Truthful

Laziness means more work in the long run.

Running, Mean, Long

C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.

Prayer, Wine, Vision

C. S. Lewis (2002). “The World's Last Night: And Other Essays”, p.16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!') In heavens name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.

Believe, Names, Heaven

C. S. Lewis (2009). “Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963”, p.76, HarperCollins UK

You May Also Like: