“I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“The search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where God wants him to be a pupil. What he wants from the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains [heaven]. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a Lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“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.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch. I was there when it was written.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“We need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“No man who says, 'I'm as good as you,' believes it. He would not say it if he did.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Readers are advised to remember the devil is a liar.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.”
―
C.S. Lewis
“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.”
―
C.S. Lewis
