Mere Christianity

“The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity", and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.”

IfsThinkingMenEndsMightHumanityCan DoJusticeDangerousOughtCostSafeDevilEvidenceAbsolutesSakeGuidesTrialsImpulseAgreementFinding YourselfDangerous ThingsTreacherous

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing-rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.”

IfsLooksHumanityIndividualGrowingTreeSpreadComplicatedConnectedGrowing Things

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality.”

IfsIdeasWould BeMoralMoralitySavagesCivilised

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred”

IfsMenInspirationalSelfWholeInstrumentsCleanGods WillGlimpse

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise to never have a headache or always to feel hungry.”

IfsWayFeelsWellsLongMadeI CanFeelingsMightActionCertainCan DoGoes OnPromiseHungryCeaseCommitBeing TrueBelovedHeadache

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”

IfsNeedsWholeOrderHousePrayerCommonEnemyPraying

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“What can you ever really know of other people's souls — of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.”

PeopleIfsKnowsSoulWholeHandsOpportunityStruggleFateCreationTemptationIf There Is A God

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“Theology is like a map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God--experiences compared with which many thrills of pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further you must use the map.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWantKindRealUseFeelingsChristianMy FriendsExcitingTheologyDoctrineDesertConfusedMapsPiousChristian Doctrine

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary.”

IfsThinkingMenActionChristianityImprovementConversionSuspectsAmbitiousImaginaryEnviousSpitefulSnobbish

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.”

IfsKnowsMatterSituationJudgingOvercomingDifficultyPerseveranceChristian InspirationalHard TimesSincerityWhat MattersGod Knows

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.”

IfsWantHandsJoyWaterFireEternalWarmPrizeWarmthWetEternal LifeLecturerDo It Yourself

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“If you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.”

IfsMindBelieveChristianReadingBeliefReligiousPrayerChristianityAliveAcceptedDoctrineChristian LifeFedsDaily Prayer

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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“We treat our dogs as if they were "almost human": that is why they really become "almost human" in the end.”

IfsHumansEndsDogTreats

Book:Mere Christianity

Source: Mere Christianity

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