“Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day."
―
C.S. Lewis
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located
will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them,and what came through them was longing.
These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we
really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers.
For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“It now seemed to me that all my other guesses had been only self-pleasing dreams spun out of my wishes, but now I was awake.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex is very often a substitute for Joy. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“There is no other day. All days are present now. This moment contains all moments.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one!”
―
C.S. Lewis
“That is one of the functions of art: to present what the narrow and desperately practical perspectives of real life exclude.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, which will 'turn the necessity to glorious gain.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“[E]very time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Oh, I'm a dangerous criminal, I am,' said the dwarf cheerfully.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“The dream is ended- this is the morning.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”
―
C.S. Lewis
“It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.”
―
C.S. Lewis
