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Perhaps civilization will never be safe until we care for something else more than we care for it. The hypothesis has certain facts to support it. As far as peace (which is one ingredient in our idea of civilization)is concerned, I think many would now agree that a foreign policy dominated by desire for peace is one of the many roads that lead to war.
C. S. Lewis
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As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'
C. S. Lewis
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The worst of sleeping out of doors is that you wake up so dreadfully early. And when you wake up you have to get up because the ground is so hard you are uncomfortable. And it makes matters worse if there is nothing but apples for breakfast and you have had nothing but apples for supper the night before.
C. S. Lewis
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If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most, or else just silly.
C. S. Lewis
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Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others.
C. S. Lewis
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What began the change was the very writing itself. Let no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant.
C. S. Lewis
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The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forewarmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack.
C. S. Lewis
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A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not at all afraid of fire." "With your Majesty's leave-" began Reepicheep. "No, Reepicheep," said the King very firmly, "you are not to attempt a single combat with it.
C. S. Lewis
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When he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been saying 'Oh Lord, make me chaste,' his heart had been secretly adding, 'But please don't do it just yet.
C. S. Lewis
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We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin.
C. S. Lewis
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Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's) you don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.
C. S. Lewis
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If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
C. S. Lewis
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A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the fact, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God.
C. S. Lewis
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Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
C. S. Lewis
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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.
C. S. Lewis
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The old field of space, time, matter, and the senses is to be weeded, dug, and sown for a new crop. We may be tired of that old field: God is not.
C. S. Lewis
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We thought the Duke would have been pleased if the King's Majesty would have married his daughter, but nothing came of that--' Squints, and has freckles,' said Caspian. Oh, poor girl,' said Lucy.
C. S. Lewis
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Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.
C. S. Lewis
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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
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In silence and in meditation on the eternal truths, I hear the voice of God which excites our hearts to greater love.
C. S. Lewis
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Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest places.
C. S. Lewis
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We're free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you're running away to Narnia you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn't your horse any longer. One might just as well say you're her human.
C. S. Lewis
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Nothing less will shake a man — or at any rate a man like me — out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.
C. S. Lewis
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He is not the soul of Nature, nor any part of Nature. He inhabits eternity: He dwells in a high and holy place: heaven is His throne, not his vehicle, earth is his footstool, not his vesture. One day he will dismantle both and make a new heaven and earth. He is not to be identified even with the 'divine spark' in man. He is 'God and not man.
C. S. Lewis
