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Whatever men expect, they soon come to think they have a right to; the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on our part, be turned into a sense of injury. (senior devil speaking)
C. S. Lewis
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The return from the walk, and the arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four.
C. S. Lewis
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If the parents in each generation always or often knew what really goes on at their sons' schools, the history of education would be very different.
C. S. Lewis
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Hitherto the plans of the educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted, and indeed we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses.
C. S. Lewis
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Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.
C. S. Lewis
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There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.
C. S. Lewis
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The man can neither man, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.
C. S. Lewis
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When you invite a middle-aged moralist to address you, I suppose I must conclude that you have a taste for middle-aged moralizing.
C. S. Lewis
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But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.
C. S. Lewis
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The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation.
C. S. Lewis
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This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.
C. S. Lewis
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At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says.
C. S. Lewis
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Be sure it is not for nothing that the Landlord has knit our hearts so closely to time and place – to one friend rather than another and one shire more that all the land.
C. S. Lewis
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Many things, such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly - are done worst when we try hardest to do them.
C. S. Lewis
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Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things.
C. S. Lewis
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Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best.
C. S. Lewis
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What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire the next minute, I am so much further on.
C. S. Lewis
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I have seen landscapes . . . which, under a particular light, make me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge.
C. S. Lewis
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Of course all children's literature is not fantastic, so all fantastic books need not be children's books. It is still possible, even in an age so ferociously anti-romantic as our own, to write fantastic stories for adults: though you will usually need to have made a name in some more fashionable kind of literature before anyone will publish them.
C. S. Lewis
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Christ did not die for man because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because he is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely.
C. S. Lewis
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There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ verse latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
C. S. Lewis
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No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power.
C. S. Lewis
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The continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.
C. S. Lewis
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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
