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C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water...If I find in myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

IfsWorldWantFeelsWellsMadeDesireWaterBornThis WorldBabyCreaturesHungerSatisfactionExplanationSwimAnother WorldDucklings
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“In any fairly large and talkative community such as a university there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumour that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by the group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other group can say.”

ThinkingShouldWisdomTogetherFormCommunityDifferencesOpinionGroupsWorstDangerUniversityEncountersOppositionThriveOutsidersHostilityAbsentComplacentRumoursDogmatismTalkativeDifferences Of Opinion
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.”

PeopleIfsLittlesSometimesHelpingMightChristianReligionPrayerLike YouBattleDrawsAdvantageStrongerTreatedConclusionGrantedPostsDesperateProbabilityOur PrayersHastyGreat Battle
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the 'first fruits,' the pioneer of life,' He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.”

IfsMenFirstsKindHas BeensDifferentDoneWholeUniverseSpeakChristDoorsEventsKingsMetsAchievementFruitLife ChangingRisingResurrectionLockedBeatenTestamentNew TestamentPioneersChrists Resurrection
Book:Joyful Christian
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“...we sacrifice other species to our own not because our own has any objective metaphysical privilege over others, but simply because it is ours. It may be very natural to have this loyalty to our own species, but let us hear no more from the naturalists about the "sentimentality" of anti-vivisectionists. If loyalty to our own species - preference for man simply because we are men - is not sentiment, then what is?”

IfsMenMayNaturalAnimalSacrificeSpeciesPrivilegeLoyaltyObjectivesSentimentsAnimal RightsMetaphysicalPreferenceSentimentalityNaturalist
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another.”

HumansMayImportantWholeAgeRaceCuttingGenerationsDangerErrorsHuman RaceCharacteristicsDeceivingCommerceE CommerceScrewtape Letters
Book:Paved with Good Intentions: A Demon’s Road Map to Your Soul
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“All the delights of sense, or heart, or intellect, with which you could once have tempted him, even the delights of virtue itself, now seem to him in comparison but as the half nauseous attractions of a raddled harlot would seem to a man who hears that his true beloved whom he has loved all his life and whom he had believed to be dead is alive and even now at his door.”

MenHeartSeemsHalfVirtueAliveDoorsDelightIntellectAttractionBelovedComparisonTemptedHarlots
Book:The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast
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“If the immutable heart can be grieved by the puppets of its own making, it is Divine Omnipotence, no other, that has subjected it, freely, and in a humility that passes understanding. If the world exists not chiefly that we may love God, but that God may love us, yet that very fact, on a deeper level, is so for our sakes. If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.”

IfsWorldNeedsHeartMayFactsUnderstandingLevelsHumilityDivineNeededSakeDeeperGod LovePuppetsOmnipotence
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers-or should I say, nurses?-will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.”

MenWayWantShouldMayLittlesRealMightTeacherPlansTeachingIgnoranceWasteFellowsBusySpreadNurseShould IPenaltiesToilIncentivesConceitToo BusyAbolitionReassuringDuncesVermin
Book:The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast
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“We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way (there is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.”

WayFirstsLooksMayArtDoneOrderDemandDeserveAskingSurrenderWorks Of Art
Book:An Experiment in Criticism
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