My own idea, for what it is worth, is that all sadness which is not either arising from the repentance of a concrete sin and hastening towards concrete amendment or restitution, or else arising from pity and hastening to active assistance, is simply bad; and I think we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to 'rejoice' as much as by anything else. Humility, after the first shock, is a cheerful virtue.
C. S. LewisThe prayer preceding all prayers is 'May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.'
C. S. LewisThe central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start.
C. S. LewisEveryone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.
C. S. LewisIt is in some ways more troublesome to track and swat an evasive wasp than to shoot, at close range, a wild elephant. But the elephant is more troublesome if you miss.
C. S. LewisAre not lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it.
C. S. Lewis