“You weren't a decent man and you didn't do your best. We none of us were and none of us did.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game 'or else people won't take it seriously'. Apparently it's like that. Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.”
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C.S. Lewis
“They [Narnia] are, perhaps, the greatest classics of children’s literature of the twentieth century.”
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C.S. Lewis
“I do not expect old heads on young shoulders.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.”
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C.S. Lewis
“One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give, and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God. Now, quite plainly natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. “Why drag God into it?” you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex or dipsomania or nervousness or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap, and between ourselves, you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing, and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognize their need for Christ at all until one day, the natural goodness lets them down, and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are rich in this sense to enter the kingdom.”
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C.S. Lewis
“For pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”
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C.S. Lewis
“[M]an has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false," but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary," "conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”
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C.S. Lewis
“You know me better than you think, you know, and you shall know me better yet.”
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C.S. Lewis
“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects--with their Christianity latent.”
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C.S. Lewis
“This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.”
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C.S. Lewis