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C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“Death and resurrection are what the story is about and had we but eyes to see it, this has been hinted on every page, met us, in some disguise, at every turn, and even been muttered in conversations between such minor characters (if they are minor characters) as the vegetables.”

IfsHas BeensCharacterStoriesEyeTurnsMetsConversationPagesVegetablesResurrectionMinorsDisguiseMinor Characters
Book:Miracles: A Preliminary Study
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“An 'impersonal God'-well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads-better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap-best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, King, husband-that is quite another matter.”

WellsStillsEndsMatterForceAliveKingsHusbandGoodnessInfiniteSpeedPullingHuntersSubjectiveCords
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
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“Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead.”

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Book:A Grief Observed Readers' Edition: With contributions from Hilary Mantel, Jessica Martin, Jenna Bailey, Rowan Williams, Kate Saunders, Francis Spufford and Maureen Freely
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“When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

IfsNeedsFeelsHelpingRememberFacesTurnsSoundSilenceDoorsArmsGratitudeClaimsPraiseVainDesperateYour FaceTemptedInterruptionsOpen ArmsGrief Observed
Book:A Grief Observed
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“A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. It was hardly a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.”

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Book:A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia
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“I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought feeling after feeling action after action had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an harrow to the string then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead through to H. I set out on one of them. But now there's an impassable frontier-post across it. So many roads once now so many culs de sac.”

ThinkingFeelsFeelingsActionRememberGriefGoneObjectsHabitLaysPostsSuspenseImpulseFrustrationStringsTargetBowsFrontiersFittingHabitual
Book:A Grief Observed
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“All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

WorldInspirationalStoriesEarthLastsThis WorldAdventureGoes OnPagesTitlesChaptersNarniaScrewtape LettersTill We Have Faces
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“They were really getting quite fond of their strange pet and hoped that Aslan would allow them to keep it. The cleverer ones were quite sure by now that at least some of the noises which came out of his mouth had a meaning. They christened him Brandy because he made that noise so often.”

MadeStrangeMouthsNoisePetBrandy
Book:The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection with Bonus Book: Boxen
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“Here the whole world (stars, water, air, And field, and forest, as they were Reflected in a single mind) Like cast off clothes was left behind In ashes, yet with hopes that she, Re-born from holy poverty, In lenten lands, hereafter may Resume them on her Easter Day." (Epitaph for Joy Gresham)”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love", and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest "well pleased".”

IfsMenHumansWellsLooksMayLongDoeMadeProblemSufferingLove IsPleasureExistenceObjectsDivineAll ThingsSakeGod LoveCentreDivine LoveHuman SufferingWords Love
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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