“You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: “We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.” Need-love says of a woman “I cannot live without her”; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection – if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart."
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C.S. Lewis
“Straight tribulation is easier to bear than tribulation which advertises itself as pleasure.”
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C.S. Lewis
“But he always licked to get visitors alone in the billiard room and tell them stories about a mysterious lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. 'A devilish temper she had,' he would say. 'But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.”
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C.S. Lewis
“The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.”
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C.S. Lewis
“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story.”
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C.S. Lewis
“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary; and after one's original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in 'religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better; just as in an illness 'feeling better' is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The war-time posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world taking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Be confident small immortals. You are not the only voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“If the world is meaningless, then so are we; if we mean something, we do not mean alone.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.”
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C.S. Lewis
“We do know that no person can be saved except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him.”
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C.S. Lewis
“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.”
―
C.S. Lewis
