Quotes from C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis Quotes



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Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

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God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

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Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

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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.

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Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

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To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

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A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest

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If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

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Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

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We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

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Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...

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Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

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Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.

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I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.

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I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

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You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.

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Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.

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We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.

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I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!

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Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.

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Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.

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As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.

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Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.

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Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.

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It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.

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You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.

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In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison-you do not know God at all.

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Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.

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