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C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“Never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.”

IfsWorldTryingHumansWholeHouseFearCan DoHuman BeingsNiceAtheismBuildingRageWhole WorldSandPinsWisestNice Things
Book:Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality
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“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”

PeopleIfsFactsCoursesSimpleChristianityEasierIslamSimplicityBotherCultInventingMaking Up
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“When the author walks on the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right...something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise...it will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up.”

PlayUseBeautifulLyingChoicesLeftSidesWalksMeditationImpossibleStageTerribleLateToo LateYou ChooseDisguiseYour Side
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

PeopleKindTwoSoulEndsSelfDoneJoyDesireReligionChoicesHellMissingGreat DivorceThy Will Be Done
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.”

IfsMenWayDoeShowsTakenInspirational LifeEvidenceIllHidingShow MeRatsCellarsProvocationIll Tempered
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“My own eyes are not enough for me...I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many is not enough...I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee. More gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog.”

WorldWritingStillsBookEnoughRealityEyeFacesHumanityNatureMy OwnAnimalEmotionDogInformationRegretPerceivePetCarrieBeesMiceBrutesI RegretThrough The EyesAnimals In Nature
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult to save.”

PeopleWorldNeedsMightWould BeDifficultNiceSalvationMiserableNice PeopleNiceness
Book:Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality
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“It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still that she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and darkness before Time began, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and death itself would work backwards.”

IfsKnowsMeanLittlesStillsDifferentInspirationFaithKnownDarknessMagicWillingVictimTablesCommittedDeeperChristian InspirationalDawnCracksWitchStillnessBackwardsWardrobeTraitorTreacheryNarniaLion Witch WardrobeLion The Witch And The Wardrobe
Book:The Chronicles of Narnia Vol I: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
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“There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.”

ThinkingMenTryingMayDoeMatterUseInspirationSpiritualFaithMaterialsCreaturesEatingWineChristian InspirationalLikesBreadNew LifeCrudeMaterial ThingsBread And Wine
Book:Mere Christianity
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“And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.”

WorldWayLoveDoeMadeMatterWholeLife IsThreeDramaTrue LoveRoundsPatternsPersonal Life
Book:The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis
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“Wherever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position.”

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Book:The Abolition of Man: C.S. Lewis’s Classic Essay on Objective Morality: A Critical Edition by Michael Ward
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