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C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others—not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.”

PeopleIfsMenMindDoeWholeCharacterFactsShowsLyingSidesCan DoKnowingImpossibleConditionsMirrorsCleanInitiativeSunlightKnowing God
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
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“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment 'as to the Lord.' It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

MenLongWarDoneMomentsAsksTermLordVirtueGracePlansHe ManDutyCommitBreadLong TermOnly TimeDaily BreadOur Daily Bread
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

FeelsBelieveTwoFallInterestRaceExistenceEqualDevilOppositesErrorsDelightMagicianUnhealthyHailScrewtape Letters
Book:The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil
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“Why you fool, it's the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles....He's our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.”

PeopleNeedsBelieveProblemEducationFoolReaderPaperDifficultyEducatedGrantedPropagandaArticlesPapersBrowsSkipWorkmen
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' [everything]. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

IfsWorldShouldTryingUseSawsStreetsGardenAll ThingsWindowInvisibleTransparentOpaque
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?”

ThinkingCountryLightTogetherGirlBitsWatchesAudienceGoneStageTheatreCoveredAppetitePlatesLiftingTeaseMutton
Book:The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
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“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.”

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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's no use telling us that something was 'mysterious' or 'loathsome' or 'awe-inspiring' or 'voluptuous.' By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim, 'how mysterious!' or 'loathsome' or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you'll have no need to tell me how I should react.”

NeedsShouldUseOrderPowerfulReaderTasteDegreesEmpathyBeatsDirectLet MeMetaphorSentencesMysteriousAweDescriptionLengthMelodyNervesAssociationApathyOfferingSimileStimulusBrevityAwe InspiringVoluptuousVowels
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“I am suffering incessant temptations to uncharitable thoughts at present; one of those black moods in which nearly all one's friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there should be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil.”

ThinkingShouldKindSeemsSufferingEvilBlackSinPleasureTerribleSelfishMoodTemptationIncessantBeing Selfish
Book:The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963
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