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C. S. Lewis Quotes

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“Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.”

IfsKnowsMaySometimesGovernmentHeavenVoiceSleepMistakeWorstConscienceLustCrueltyTemptationImpulseTyrantsApprovalTormentRepentRobbersTheocracySatedPower And FearRobber Baron
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is a nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenPersonsSaidRealCoursesInterestImagineIntelligentHumbleImagine ThatCheerfulChapsChristian HumilityHumble ManHumble Person
Book:The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
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“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

IfsMenTryingHas BeensArtTruthLiteratureCreativityTenOriginalsMereCaringNineBotherTelling The TruthOriginalityOriginal ThoughtBeing OriginalOriginal ArtLiterature And Art
Book:Virtue and Vice: A Dictionary of the Good Life
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“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

IfsKnowsShouldWholeWisdomLightWould BeEyeReligionUniverseFoundLiteratureDarkAtheismCreaturesMereThere Is No GodGod ExistsThere Being No GodApologeticProof Of GodProof That God ExistsProof God Exists
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.”

IfsReasonWisdomSidesAnimalExistenceEnemyStruggleCuttingIndustryCriminalsCrueltyBeastPetLogicalVeganAnimal RightsCapitalistVegetarianismAnimal WelfareAnimal CrueltyAnimal LoveAnimal WorldImbecilesAnimal LifeAnimal CompassionVivisectionAnimal TestingKindness To AnimalsStruggle For Existence
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

IfsWantLoveInspirationalGivingHeartLittlesDarkLove IsAnimalLove YouBrokenSafeTrue LoveRoundsVulnerableLuxurySelfishnessNovelistsVulnerabilityBroken HeartRomantic LoveLocksHobbiesWrapsTheologicalLoving SomeoneCoffinsThose We LoveEssayistsWhat Is LoveCaptivatingFear Of LoveWrappingLove Is All You NeedUnbreakableLove HurtCasketsEntanglementLovelessness
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Why should your majesty think it? My own plans are made. While I may, I sail East in Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I row East in my coracle. When that sinks, shall I paddle East with my four paws. Then, when I can swim no longer, if I have not yet reached Aslan's Country, there shall I sink with my nose to the sunrise... and Peepiceek will be head of Talking Mice in Narnia”

IfsThinkingShouldMayMadeI CanCountryMy OwnTalkingFourPlansFailingEastNosesDawnSwimSailSunriseMiceMajestyPawsNarnia
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection - if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”

IfsNeedsGivingShouldWonderComfortLosingBreathsSilentProtectionRejoiceAppreciativeNeed LoveDejectedLosing Her
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.”

IfsThinkingKnowsNeedsFeelsMindMayPersonsHas BeensRealHelpingProblemCausesCan DoPoorSupportDoubtDutySickCharityWorthyPityVillageFar AwayFiniteKnowing GodWorthy Causes
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The mold in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it -- made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.”

IfsMadeSoulHandsSeemsWould BeHouseHeavenDoorsDivineParticularStrangeKeysFitShapesInfiniteCuriousYour SoulSubstanceLocksHollowMoldGlovesStrange ThingsMansionsStitchesSwelling
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.”

IfsThinkingMenFeelsSaidBookAbleFacesDealsHalfModernStudentsGreatnessPhilosopherGreat MenPlatoSimplestFace To FaceInadequateCommentatorsGreat Philosophers
Book:God in the Dock
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“If God 'foresaw' our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose god is outside and above the Time-line... You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He know your tomorrow's actions in just the same way--because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but the moment at which you have done it is already 'NOW' for Him.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments one following another...Ten-thirty-- and every other moment from the beginning of the world--is always Present for Him. If you like to put it this way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.”

IfsWorldWayDoeMomentsPrayerTenEternityFollowingPlanesFlamesThirtyPilotsSplitsCrashPlane Crashes
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns...It will remain a garden only if someone does all these things to it...If you want to see the difference between [the garden's] contribution and the gardener's, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes rakes, shears, and a packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy, and fecundity beside dead, steril things. Just so, our 'decency and common sense' show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love.”

IfsWantLoveDoeShowsAgeEnergyGrowsSidesDifferencesCommonCuttingTreeGardenFruitCommon SenseContributionWeedKillersGreyFenceDecencyGardenerLawnsRakesFruit TreesHoePrunesShearsGeniality
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

IfsWayTryingFirstsMeanPersonsWould BeActionCertainReligionFaithOrderCoursesHeavenChristChristianityAdviceMereRewardsSavedWorriedObedienceHave FaithTrustedNew WaysGleam
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. Bat at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it.”

IfsGivingWellsWholeAgeFormUsedCan DoClassFantasyReaderConceptsAddMythFairyFairy TaleConcreteBatsFairytale
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldMeanDoeChristianFormNextVirtueModernEternalLooking ForwardTheologicalEscapismWishful Thinking
Book:Joyful Christian
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“He thinks great folly, child,' said Aslan. "This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh, Adam's son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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