C. S. Lewis Quotes

The claim to equality, outside of the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior.

Freedom always comes with a price.

There is someone that I love even though I don't approve of what he does. There is someone I accept though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me. There is someone I forgive though he hurts the people I love the most. That person is......me.

Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man.

Oh Trees, Trees, Trees...wake. Don't you remember it? Don't you remember me? Dryads and hamadryads, come out, come [out] to me.

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is a nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.

A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the fact, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God.

I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.

As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'

I'm afraid it's not much use to you, Mr. Rumblebuffin.' Not at all. Not at all.' said the giant politely. 'Never met a nicer hankerchee.

True humility is more like self-forgetfulness than false modesty.

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.

We must beware of the Past, mustn't we? I mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and usually bad for us. Notice in Dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past! Not so the saved.

How could an idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger, better, subtler than itself?

I became my own only when I gave myself to Another.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

I'm not sure God wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to love, and be loved. But we are like children, thinking our toys will make us happy and the whole world is our nursery. Something must drive us out of that nursery and into the lives of others, and that something is suffering.

If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most, or else just silly.

Will the others see you too?" asked Lucy. "Certainly not at first," said Aslan. "Later on, it depends." "But they won’t believe me!" said Lucy. "It doesn’t matter.

They stormed and jeered at one another in long meaningless words of about twenty syllables each.

The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.

I will not be at the mercy of the telephone!

There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.

And in truth (as I now see) I had the wish to put off my journey as long as I could. Not for any peril or labour it might cost; but because I could see nothing in the whole world for me to do once it was accomplished. AS long as this act lay before me, there was, as it were, some barrier between me and the dead desert which the rest of my life must be.

We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument...Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege.

Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly.

You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to him employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which h allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.

There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.

The humblest praise most, while cranks & malcontents praise least. Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible

If you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.

The sin both of men and of angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave us free will.

If we continue to make moral judgements (and whatever we say shall in fact continue) then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of nature.

And the Prince stared at her like a man out of his wits.

He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offenses. This makes sense only if He really was God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin.

I could well believe that it is God's intention, since we have refused milder remedies, to compel [Christians] into unity, by persecution even. Satan is without doubt nothing else than a hammer in the hand of a benevolent and severe God.

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

I daren't come and drink," said Jill. Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion. Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer."I suppose I must go and look for another stream then." There is no other stream," said the Lion.

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Something of God... flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.

The notion that everyone would like Christianity to be true, and therefore all atheists are brave men who have accepted the defeat of all their deepest desires, is simply impudent nonsense.

The longest way round is the shortest way home. (Quoting Alexander MacLaren, The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons)

When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts, and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.

What we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you...We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly.

Nobody who gets enough food and clothing in a world where most are hungry and cold has any business to talk about 'misery.'

But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.

The mouse is a fair treat but this one would talk the hind legs off a donkey.

Do you mean to say," asked Caspian, "that you three come from a round world (round like a ball) and you've never told me! It's really too bad for you. Because we have fairy-tales in which there are round worlds and I have always loved them … Have you ever been to the parts where people walk about upside-down?" Edmund shook his head. "And it isn't like that," he added. "There's nothing particularly exciting about a round world when you're there.