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C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“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
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“The poison was brewed in these West lands but it has spat itself everywhere by now. However far you went you would find the machines, the crowded cities, the empty thrones, the false writings, the barren beds: men maddened with false promises and soured with true miseries, worshipping the iron works of their own hands, cut off from Earth their Mother and from the Father in Heaven. You might go East so far the East became West and you returned to Britain across the great Ocean, but even so you would not have come out anywhere into the light. The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.”

MenWritingHandsLightMightEarthMotherFatherHeavenDarkCitiesCuttingLandPromiseBedOceanShadowEmptyMachinesWingsMiseryWestEastPoisonBritainIronThronesCrowdedBarrenFather In HeavenSpatsFalse PromisesCrowded Cities
Book:That Hideous Strength
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“But why,... if you have a serious comment to make on the real life of men, must you do it by talking about a phantasmagoric never-never land of your own? Because, I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality.”

IfsMenWantRealQualityTalkingLandSeriousReal LifeCommentHeroicNever Never Land
Book:On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
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“You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), 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 - like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.”

IfsMenWayHas BeensSelfWholeUseNationsMoonInstrumentsCleanGods WillHorribleDirtyGlimpseLensesAnother WayTelescopesMicroscopes
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
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“Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let the villans be soundly killed at the end of the book. I think it is possible that by confining your child to the blameless stories of life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable.”

ThinkingChildrenBookEndsStoriesHappensFailingKingsBattleSucceedOur ChildrenTerrorYour ChildrenGiantsWickedDragonsDungeonsBlameless
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us toward is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.”

NeedsTryingFirstsMayStillsImportantSoulMomentsHelpingHandsAsksProcessTeachVirtueWorstDependsHabitDespairIllusionPicksTrainCuresForgivenAlways TryingTry AgainTruthfulnessChastityAsking For ForgivenessBest MomentsGod FirstPick Yourself Up
Author:C. S. Lewis
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