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A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest." He also said: "No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally - and often far more - worth reading at the age of 50 and beyond.
C. S. Lewis
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Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.
C. S. Lewis
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Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give.
C. S. Lewis
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I do not doubt that if the Paradisal man could now appear among us, we should regard him as an utter savage, a creature to be exploited or, at best, patronised. Only one or two, and those the holiest among us, would glance a second time at the naked, shaggy-bearded, slow spoken creature: but they, after a few minutes, would fall at his feet.
C. S. Lewis
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"Don't bother too much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them; when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behavior
C. S. Lewis
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And for all I can tell, the only difference is that what many see we call a real thing, and what only one sees we call a dream. But things that many see may have no taste or moment in them at all, and things that are shown only to one may be spears and water-spouts of truth from the very depth of truth.
C. S. Lewis
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Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.
C. S. Lewis
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You don’t think – not possibly – not as a mere hundredth chance – there might be things that are real though we can’t see them? … If there are souls, could there not be soul-houses?
C. S. Lewis
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if anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much at his service--with my sword--whenever he has leisure.
C. S. Lewis
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There must, whether the gods see it or not, be something great in the mortal soul. For suffering, it seems, is infinite, and our capacity without limit.
C. S. Lewis
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But he always licked to get visitors alone in the billiard room and tell them stories about a mysterious lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. 'A devilish temper she had,' he would say. 'But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.
C. S. Lewis
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No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
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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She stepped out from among their shifting confusion of lovely lights and shadows. A circle of grass, smooth as a lawn, met her eyes, with dark trees dancing all around it. And then --Oh Joy! For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him.
C. S. Lewis
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A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women.
C. S. Lewis
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There are no variations except for those who know a norm, and no subtleties for those who have not grasped the obvious.
C. S. Lewis
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I wonder if people who asked for God to intervene in our world, really know what they are asking. Will they want to be there when God really does intervene?
C. S. Lewis
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Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors.
C. S. Lewis
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Certainly, Lu. Whatever you like,' said Peter unexpectedly. This was encouraging, but as Peter instantly rolled round and went to sleep again it wasn't much use.
C. S. Lewis
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A man who first tried to guess 'what the public wants,' and then preached that as Christianity because the public wants it, would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave
C. S. Lewis
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Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.
C. S. Lewis
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We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St. Augustine says somewhere, 'God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there's nowhere for Him to put it.'
C. S. Lewis
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I#pray because the need flows out of me all the time-walking and sleeping. It does not change # God - it changes me.
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
