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There is hope for a man who has never read Malory or Boswell or Tristam Shandy or Shakespeare's Sonnets: but what can you do with a man who says he "has read" them, meaning he has read them once, and thinks that this settles the matter?
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We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century [...] lies where we have never suspected it [...] The only palliative is [...] by reading old books. [...] the books of the future would be just as good [...], but unfortunately we cannot get at them.
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You ask ‘for what’ God wants you. Isn’t the primary answer that He wants you. We’re not told that the lost sheep was sought out for anything except itself [Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7]. Of course, He may have a special job for you: and the certain job is that of becoming more and more His.
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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.
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The worst attitude of all would be the professional attitude which regards children in the lump as a sort of raw material which we have to handle.
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No thanks," said Digory, "I don't know that I care much about living on and on after everyone I know is dead. I'd rather live an ordinary time and die and go to Heaven.
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Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.
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The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.
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The Christians say that God has done miracles. The modern world, even when it believes in God, and even when it has see the defenselessness of nature, does not. It thinks God would not do that sort of thing.
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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
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God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.
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Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?
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I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
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Of course language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience.
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But I remember more dearly autumn afternoons in bottoms that lay intensely silent under old great trees
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Here, I think, lies our real dilemma. Probably we cannot, certainly we shall not, retrace our steps. We are tamed animals (some with kind, some with cruel, masters) and should probably starve if we got out of our cage. That is one horn of the dilemma. But in an increasingly planned society, how much of what I value can survive? That is the other horn.
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If naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. It cuts its own throat.
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This is my password," said the King as he drew his sword. "The light is dawning, the lie broken. Now guard thee, miscreant, for I am Tirian of Narnia.
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In my experience, it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate the people who 'happen to be there.' Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.
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You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table.
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The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing than worshipping ... 'Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.
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The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career.
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Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.
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Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, "I am what I do.