The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes. C. S. Lewis More Quotes by C. S. Lewis More Quotes From C. S. Lewis If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. C. S. Lewis live-life truth thinking Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority... Every historical event in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. C. S. Lewis mean believe thinking Obedience is the road to freedom. C. S. Lewis obedience Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. C. S. Lewis heart giving people Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that. C. S. Lewis squares yellow thinking In Science we have been reading only the notes to a poem; in Christianity we find the poem itself. C. S. Lewis miracle reading christianity I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back til you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' --or else not. C. S. Lewis errors evil thinking For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life - namely myself. C. S. Lewis hate silly men It is not enough to want to get rid of one’s sins, we also need to believe in the One who saves us from our sins. C. S. Lewis want believe needs In our adversity, God shouts to us. C. S. Lewis adversity Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. C. S. Lewis letters looks enemy The Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self changed into a Christ self, and that this process goes on very far inside. One's most private wishes, one's point of view, are the things that have to be changed. C. S. Lewis self christian views Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. C. S. Lewis reason philosophy needs Love...is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. C. S. Lewis christian love-you love-is The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them,and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they 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. Lewis flower memories country Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. C. S. Lewis pride humility men The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred C. S. Lewis self inspirational men In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets... Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, "Here comes one who will augment our loves." For in this love "to divide is not to take away. C. S. Lewis jealous real blessed The more pride we have, the more other people’s pride irritates us C. S. Lewis pride people You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. C. S. Lewis wisdom goes-on philosophy