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C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.”

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Book:Paved with Good Intentions: A Demon’s Road Map to Your Soul
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“To forgive the incessant provocations of daily life - to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son - how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what he says.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being "in Christ" or of Christ being "in them", this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts--that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body.”

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“A perfect practice of Christianity would, of course, consist in a perfect imitation of the life of Christ -- I mean, in so far as it was applicable in one's own particular circumstance. Not in an idiotic sense -- it doesn't mean that every Christian should grow a beard, or be a bachelor, or become a travelling preacher. It means that every single act and feeling, every experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, must be referred to God.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here's the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it.”

MenNeedsYearsKindMeanPersonsHas BeensSelfFactsWould BeFunCan DoPerfectEatingTrainingHarderHumbleGood ManRepentancePieYou Can Do ItRepentGood PersonConceitSelf WillPerfect PersonHumble PieEating Humble Pie
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority... Every historical event in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.”

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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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“Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

WantWritingMeanUseBigsLeftLanguageWrittenSubjectsCommunicationInfinitePower Of WordsWritten WordMeans Of CommunicationWritten LanguageUse Of LanguageUsing WordsWriting WordsLanguage WordsLanguage And CommunicationLanguages CommunicationPower Of LanguageLanguage And PowerWords You SayNo CommunicationMean Words
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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“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

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Book:Christian Reflections
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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.”

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Book:Joyful Christian
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“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.”

PeopleKnowsMenGivingTryingMeanLittlesDoeHas BeensIdeasMotivationalLyingReligionStrongHoursChristianityKnow HowFiveAtheismMinutesCurrentsObviousSillyTemptationGood PeopleTemptedFive MinutesBad PeopleWill PowerGiving InBadnessPower And ControlSelf PowerDiscipline And Self ControlResisting TemptationTemptation LifeSheltered Lives
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God.”

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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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“My son, by all means desist from kicking the venerable and enlightened Vizier: for as a costly jewel retains its value even if hidden in a dung-hill, so old age and discretion are to be respected even in the vile persons of our subjects. Desist therefore, and tell us what you desire and propose.”

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Book:The Chronicles of Narnia Vol V: The Horse and his Boy
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“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

ThinkingShouldYearsWellsMeanSoulLastsFacesJoySpeakAnswersSawsSpeechYour SoulIdiotOver YouFace To FaceTill We Have Faces
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible.”

ThinkingMenTryingMindBelieveHumansMayMeanHas BeensChanceEffortCasesImpossibleAchieveHumilityFoolSucceedMethodUglyCleverNonsenseManifestRevolvingClever ManPretty WomanScrewtape Letters
Book:Joyful Christian
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“But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that darkness?' asked Drinian. Use?' replied Reepicheep. 'Use, Captain?' If you mean by filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as I have ever heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. ... We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.”

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Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“[S]omething inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed. I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will never feel it anymore. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

HeartMeanHas BeensRealityLastsDesireUniverseViewsSecretOur LivesDoorsAcceptancePromiseGloryLongingResponseStrangerPoint Of ViewTreatedWelcomeBridgesReportsRelevantKnockingAcknowledgmentChasmsDeep Desire
Author:C. S. Lewis
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