“There is something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there's also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefor, when it falls, a fiercer devil.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“The great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go God's love for us does not.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“One day, you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again.”
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C.S. Lewis
“People who know a lot of the same things can hardly help talking about them.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
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C.S. Lewis
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, "I am what I do.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“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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C.S. Lewis
“if anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much at his service--with my sword--whenever he has leisure.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To listen to that instinct speaking in its own case and deciding in its own favour would be rather simple minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be one of the parties judged: or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Come, live with me and you'll know me.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Clearly one must read every good book at least once every ten years.”
―
C.S. Lewis
