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We must perpetually try to distinguish, however closely they get entwined by the subtle nature of the facts and by the secret importunity of our passions, those attitudes in a writer which we can honestly and confidently condemn as real evils, and those qualities in his writing which simply annoy and offend us as men of taste.
C. S. Lewis
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Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females—and there is more in that than you might suppose.
C. S. Lewis
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To interest is the first duty of art; no other excellences will ever begin to compensate for failure in this.
C. S. Lewis
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Now sir, said the bulldog in his business-like way. 'Are you a animal, vegetable, or mineral?' - The Magician's Nephew
C. S. Lewis
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As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only "as harmless as doves," but also "as wise as serpents." He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head.
C. S. Lewis
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I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.
C. S. Lewis
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It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at that moment, we expected some other good.
C. S. Lewis
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The process of being brought up, however well it is done, cannot fail to offend.
C. S. Lewis
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When there came a sound that I'd never heard the like of in all my born days. Eh, I won't forget that. The whole air was full of it, loud as thunder but far longer, cool and sweet as music over water but strong enough to shake the woods. And I said to myself, 'If that's not the Horn, call me a rabbit.
C. S. Lewis
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What flows into you from myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level.
C. S. Lewis
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There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
C. S. Lewis
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I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness; you are not needed there at all. No scope of your talents; only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God. (pg 40)
C. S. Lewis
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We must meet children as equals in that area of our nature where we are their equals...The child as reader is neither to be patronized nor idolized: we talk to him as man to man.
C. S. Lewis
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Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.
C. S. Lewis
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To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within.
C. S. Lewis
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If you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way.
C. S. Lewis
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Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the old Christian rule is, "Either marriage, with completely faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence."
C. S. Lewis
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It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion.
C. S. Lewis
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If you never take risks, you'll never accomplish great things. Everybody dies, but not everyone has lived.
C. S. Lewis
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It is by human avarice or human stupidity, not by the churlishness of nature, that we have poverty and overwork.
C. S. Lewis
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Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.
C. S. Lewis
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Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you--almost apart from their meaning--a thrill like music?
C. S. Lewis
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The most intense joy, lies not in the having, but in the desire, Delight that never fades, bliss that is eternal, Is only your, when what you most desire, is just out of reach...Anthony Hopkins, from the movie Shadowlands, where he plays C.S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
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Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still.
C. S. Lewis
