C. S. Lewis Quotes

It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.

We need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.

Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see.

Joy is the serious business of heaven.

Mr. Neo-Angular – I am doing my duty. My ethics are based on dogma, not on feeling. Vertue – I know that a rule is to be obeyed because it is a rule and not because it appeals to my feelings at the moment.

The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne's question "What if this present were the world's last night?" is equally relevant.

Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.

The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort. Now a clearly maintained distinction between what the Faith actually says and what you would like it to have said or what you understand or what you personally find helpful or think probable, forces your audience to realize that you are tied to your data just as the scientist is tied by the results of the experiments; that you are not just saying what you like. This immediately helps them realize that what is being discussed is a question about objective fact — not gas about ideals and points of view.

If God 'foresaw' our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose god is outside and above the Time-line... You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He know your tomorrow's actions in just the same way — because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but the moment at which you have done it is already 'NOW' for Him.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.