[The natural life] knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.
C. S. LewisPeriods' are largely an invention of the historians. The poets themselves are not conscious of living in any period and refuse to conform to the scheme.
C. S. LewisNo Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'
C. S. LewisFor they (art and music) 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. LewisWe have made men proud of most vices, but not of cowardice. Whenever we have almost succeeded in doing so, God permits a war or an earthquake or some other calamity, and at once courage becomes so obviously lovely and important even in human eyes that all our work is undone, and there is still at least one vice of which they feel genuine shame. The danger of inducing cowardice in our patients, therefore, is lest we produce real self-knowledge and self-loathing, with consequent repentance and humility.
C. S. Lewis