~ C. S. Lewis Quotes ~

[MysteRy]

We all want progress but if you're on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

[MysteRy]

You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the univerise in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.

[MysteRy]

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach the same restlessness the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

[MysteRy]

'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve ' said Aslan. 'And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.'

[MysteRy]

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.

[MysteRy]

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?

[MysteRy]

In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed.

[MysteRy]

Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him.

[MysteRy]

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence it is only logical to cut up imbeciles criminals enemies or capitalists for the same reasons.

[MysteRy]

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. Each instinct if you listen to it will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

[MysteRy]

Don't say it was 'delightful'; make us say 'delightful' when we've read the description. You see all those words (horrifying wonderful hideous exquisite) are only like saying to your readers 'Please will you do the job for me?'

[MysteRy]

You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

[MysteRy]

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility thankfulness and temperance is by Christian standards in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

[MysteRy]

If the whole universe has no meaning we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

[MysteRy]

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.