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C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“When the most important things in our life happen we quite often do not know, at the moment, what is going on. A man does not always say to himself, "hullo! i'm growing up." It is only when he looks back that he realises what has happened and recognises it as what people call "growing up.”

PeopleKnowsMenLooksDoeImportantMomentsHappensGrowing UpOur LivesGrowingHappenedImportant ThingsRealisingRecogniseLife Happens
Book:Mere Christianity
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“The man is a humbug — a vulgar, shallow, self-satisfied mind, absolutely inaccessible to the complexities and delicacies of the real world. He has the journalist's air of being a specialist in everything, of taking in all points of view and being always on the side of the angels: he merely annoys a reader who has the least experience of knowing things, of what knowing is like. There is not two pence worth of real thought or real nobility in him. But he isn't dull.”

MenWorldMindTwoRealSelfSidesViewsKnowingAirReaderAngelPoint Of ViewSatisfiedJournalistComplexityDullReal WorldAnnoyingShallowVulgarNobilitySpecialistsDelicacyInaccessibleHumbugKnowing Things
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“If they embark on this course the difference between the old and the new education will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely 'conditions'. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds- making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation-men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.”

IfsKnowsMenKindImportantYoungPurposeCoursesDifferencesDealsTeachConditionsBirdEducationalPropagandaManhoodPupilsKeepersNew DealPropagationPoultry
Book:The Abolition of Man: C.S. Lewis’s Classic Essay on Objective Morality: A Critical Edition by Michael Ward
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“Thus the criminal ceases to be a person, a subject of rights and duties, and becomes merely an object on which society can work. And this is, in principle, how Hitler treated the Jews. They were objects; killed not for ill desert but because, on his theories, they were a disease in society. If society can mend, remake, and unmake men at its pleasure, its pleasure may, of course, be humane or homicidal. The difference is important. But, either way, rulers have become owners.”

IfsMenWayMayPersonsImportantHumanityCoursesDifferencesPleasurePrinciplesRightsSubjectsObjectsDutyTheoryDiseaseIllJewCriminalsCeaseTreatedDesertOwnersRulersHumaneRemakesHomicidalRights And Duties
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.”

MenMayCountryDiesNationsPartyLibertyClassAll ThingsClaimsSurrenderOur CountryNationalismExclusiveReservationsRendering
Book:Virtue and Vice: A Dictionary of the Good Life
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“Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.”

ThinkingMenTryingMayDoeMatterUseInspirationSpiritualFaithMaterialsCreaturesEatingWineChristian InspirationalLikesBreadNew LifeCrudeMaterial ThingsBread And Wine
Book:Mere Christianity
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“Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson.”

IfsMenTryingBelieveMayDoeRealMomentsBreakPromiseFairsComplainingThought ProvokingProvokingNot Fair
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: 365 Daily Readings from his Classic Works
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“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.”

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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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