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C. S. Lewis Quotes - Page 77

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

If we are any good we must always be working towards the moment at which our Pupils are fit to become our Critics & Rivals

If we are any good we must always be working towards the moment at which our Pupils are fit to become our Critics & Rivals

Rivals, Fit, Moments

C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Could one start a Stagnation Party-which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?

Party, Taken, Office

We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century [...] lies where we have never suspected it [...] The only palliative is [...] by reading old books. [...] the books of the future would be just as good [...], but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

Lying, Book, Reading

Every poet and musician and artist, but for grace">Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.

Divorce, Artist, Grace

"The Great Divorce". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1945.

Here, I think, lies our real dilemma. Probably we cannot, certainly we shall not, retrace our steps. We are tamed animals (some with kind, some with cruel, masters) and should probably starve if we got out of our cage. That is one horn of the dilemma. But in an increasingly planned society, how much of what I value can survive? That is the other horn.

Real, Lying, Animal

Bad art is never really enjoyed in the same sense in which good art is enjoyed. It is only "liked": it never startles, prostrates, and takes captive.

Art, Enjoyed, Captives

C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.144, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The more imagination the reader has ... the more he will do for himself. He will, at a mere hint from the author, flood wretched material with suggestion and never guess that he is himself chiefly making what he enjoys.

Imagination, Suggestions, Hints

C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.38, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.

Optimistic, Thinking, Views

We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may "conquer" them.

Order, May, Conquer

C. S. LEWIS (1947). “THE ABOLITION OF MAN”

The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact.

Heart, Facts, Christianity

C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.213, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam--he is only nourishing or protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts.

Christian, Effort, Acting

C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.64, HarperCollins UK

Time is the very lens through which ye see - small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope - something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality.

Reality, Men, Lenses

"The Great Divorce". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1945.

If you find that the reader of popular romances--however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances--goes back to his old favourites again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry.

Romance, Evidence, Reader

C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.38, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hell is a state of mind -- ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind -- is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly.

Real, Heaven, Mind

C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.185, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.

Prayer, Illusion, Concrete

C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.145, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A sensible human once said, "If people knew how much ill-feeling unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit"; and again, "She's the sort of woman who lives for others you can always tell the others by their hunted expression.

Expression, People, Feelings

'The Screwtape Letters' (1942) no. 26

I would say if a man is going to write on chemistry, he learns chemistry. The same is true of Christianity. But to speak of the craft itself, I would not know how to advise a man how to write. It is a matter of talent and interest. I believe he must be strongly moved if he is to become a writer. Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I for one must get it out.

Strong, Believe, Writing

Monarchy can easily be "debunked," but watch the faces, mark well the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film stars instead: For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

Beautiful, Spiritual, Stars

"Equality". The Spectator, Volume CLXXI, archive.spectator.co.uk. August 27, 1943.

A work of (whatever) art can be either 'received' or 'used'. ...'Using' is inferior to 'reception' because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life, and does not add to it ... When the art in question is literature a complication arises, for to 'receive' significant words is always, in one sense, to 'use' them, to go through and beyond them to an imagined something which is not itself verbal.

Art, Poetry, Doe

A particular ikon an aid to devotion may be itself a word of art, but that is logically accidental; its artistic merits will not make it a better ... ikon. They may make it a worse one.

Art, Poetry, Literature

'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.

Inspirational, Being In Love, Promise

C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.197, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Surely arrested development consists not in refusing to lose old things but in failing to add new things.

Old Things, Add, Development

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

When the most important things in our life happen we quite often do not know, at the moment, what is going on.

Important, Moments, Life Happens

C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.134, Simon and Schuster

Because, as we know, almost anything can be read into any book if you are determined enough. This will be especially impressed on anyone who has written fantastic fiction. He will find reviewers, both favourable and hostile, reading into his stories all manner of allegorical meanings which he never intended. (Some of the allegories thus imposed on my own books have been so ingenious and interesting that I often wish I had thought of them myself.)

Reading, Book, Interesting

C. S. Lewis (1964). “Reflections on the Psalms”, p.107, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one's adult enjoyment of what are called 'children's books.' I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty-except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all. A mature palate will probably not much care for crème de menthe: but it ought still to enjoy bread and butter and honey.

Children, Reading, Silly

C. S. Lewis (2002). “Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories”, p.27, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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