Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it. C. S. Lewis More Quotes by C. S. Lewis More Quotes From C. S. Lewis Our struggle is--isn't it?--to achieve and retain faith on a lower level. To believe that there is a Listener at all. For as the situation grows more and more desperate, the grisly fears intrude. Are we only talking to ourselves in an empty universe? The silence is often so emphatic. And we have prayed so much already C. S. Lewis struggle talking believe I hope I do not offend God by making my Communions in the frame of mind I have been describing. The command, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand. C. S. Lewis communion command mind Remember, we Christians think man lives for ever. Therefore, what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or a hellish creature. C. S. Lewis christian running men A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one calls a child selfish because it turns for comfort to its mother; nor an adult who turns to his fellow "for company." Those, whether children or adults, who do so least are not usually the most selfless. C. S. Lewis selfish mother children I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This becomes clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow - getting into my morning bath is usually one of them - that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right. This is good and tonic. C. S. Lewis cutting grief morning We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. C. S. Lewis delight lovers beautiful You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the things they call love, I have what is better - the experience of Sappho, of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte, of anyone else I have read. C. S. Lewis business dream love Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons. C. S. Lewis dragons government book They were pretty tired by now of course; but not what I’d call bitterly tired – only slow and feeling very dreamy and tired as one does when one is coming to the end of a long day in the open. C. S. Lewis tired feelings long 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. C. S. Lewis journey wish long To love you as I should, I must worship God as Creator. When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest t all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed bu increased. C. S. Lewis love-you moving firsts The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive. C. S. Lewis pretending morality reality Humour is...the all-consoling and...the all-excusing, grace of life. C. S. Lewis consoling humour grace 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. C. S. Lewis three mean people Am I lost or just less found? C. S. Lewis found lost The false religion of lust is baser than the false religion of mother-love or patriotism or art: but lust is less likely to be made into a religion. C. S. Lewis lust mother art Did I hate him, then? Indeed, I believe so. A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love. C. S. Lewis hate hatred believe A man's physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. C. S. Lewis men believe thinking A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people) like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits etc.) can do the journey on their own. C. S. Lewis journey men people Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it. C. S. Lewis wisdom believe ideas
