Quotessence
Home / Authors / C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsMenThinkingPeopleWorldKnowsChristianMayDoeWantGivingReligionRealInspirationalMadeMeanSaidWayHas BeensMere

Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ verse latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

PeopleIfsWayWisdomChristianNextChristObjectsHolyGloryOrdinaryBlessedMereNeighborSensesMortalsVersesSacramentsOrdinary PeopleBlessed SacramentMere Mortals
Author:C. S. Lewis
Create image

“We want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven: a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all."”

PeopleWantSaidEndsFactsMightYoungUniverseFatherHeavenEnjoyAttitudePlansEach DayGood TimesGrandfatherBenevolenceFather In HeavenSenile
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
Create image

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”

PeopleIfsFactsCoursesSimpleChristianityEasierIslamSimplicityBotherCultInventingMaking Up
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
Create image

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

PeopleKindTwoSoulEndsSelfDoneJoyDesireReligionChoicesHellMissingGreat DivorceThy Will Be Done
Author:C. S. Lewis
Create image

“A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult to save.”

PeopleWorldNeedsMightWould BeDifficultNiceSalvationMiserableNice PeopleNiceness
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
Create image

“The standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others.”

PeopleThinkingTwoIdeasDifferentRealFactsMoralityStandardsIndependentCompareTwo ThingsAdmitting
Book:The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
Create image

“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.”

PeopleIfsMenMindDoeWholeCharacterFactsShowsLyingSidesCan DoKnowingImpossibleConditionsMirrorsCleanInitiativeSunlightKnowing God
Book:A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works
Create image

“Why you fool, it's the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles....He's our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.”

PeopleNeedsBelieveProblemEducationFoolReaderPaperDifficultyEducatedGrantedPropagandaArticlesPapersBrowsSkipWorkmen
Author:C. S. Lewis
Create image

“The Intelligentsia (scientists apart) are losing all touch with, and all influence over, nearly the whole human race. Our most esteemed poets and critics are read by our most esteemed critics and poets (who don't usually like them much) and nobody else takes any notice. An increasing number of highly literate people simply ignore what the 'Highbrows' are doing. It says nothing to them. The Highbrows in return ignore and insult them.”

PeopleWorldHumansWholeAmericaNumbersRaceInfluenceModernPoetReturnLosingScientistCriticsHuman RaceInsultModern World
Book:God in the Dock
Create image

“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
Create image

“Temperance referred not abstaining, but going the right length and no further...of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink, either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he wants to give the money to the poor, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying.”

PeopleMenWantGivingMayDoeReasonWholeChristianCoursesStrongEnjoyPoorToo MuchParticularDutyDrinkDrinkingLikesLengthDrunkennessTemperanceDrinking Too MuchAbstainingStrong Drink
Author:C. S. Lewis
Create image

“All I am in private life is a literary critic and historian, that's my job...And I'm prepared to say on that basis if anyone thinks the Gospels are either legends or novels, then that person is simply showing his incompetence as a literary critic. I've read a great many novels and I know a fair amount about the legends that grew up among early people, and I know perfectly well the Gospels are not that kind of stuff.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsWellsKindPersonsJobsLife IsStuffNovelGrewAmountGrew UpBibleFairsBasesPreparedCriticsGreat MenHistorianLegendsPrivate LifeIncompetence
Author:C. S. Lewis
Create image

“Ambition! We must be careful what we mean by it. If it means the desire to get ahead of other people - which is what I think it does mean - then it is bad. If it means simply wanting to do a thing well, then it is good. It isn't wrong for an actor to want to act his part as well as it can possibly be acted, but the wish to have his name in bigger type than the other actors is a bad one.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWantWellsMeanDoeDesireActorsNamesWishTypeAmbitionBiggerCarefulBe CarefulGet Ahead
Book:God in the Dock
Create image

“For the church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities but the Body of Christ, in which all members, however different, (and He rejoices in their differences and by no means wishes to iron them out) must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.”

PeopleHumansMeanDifferentHelpingBodyWishChristNaturalDifferencesChurchUnitedCommonShareMembersIronRejoiceHuman SocietyAffinityBody Of ChristCommon Life
Book:Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963
Create image

“But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn't know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsLooksChildrenSometimesEyeFacesSpiritualFoundSawsTerribleCaughtBe GoodGoldenOverwhelmingRoyalGlimpseSolemnNarniaBeavers
Book:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Create image

“That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended - civilizations are built up - excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down.”

PeopleFactsSeemsGovernmentRunningEnergyBreakKeysCivilizationBuiltMachinesInstitutionsMiserySelfishRuinsExcellentFlawsYardsBreaking DownTerrificSlidesFatal Flaws
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
Create image

“I can answer that only by hearsay, returned the Guide, for pain is a secret which he has shared with your race and not with mine; and you would find it as hard to explain suffering to me as I would find it to reveal to you the secrets of the Mountain people. But those who know best say this, that any liberal man would choose the pain of this desire, even for ever, rather than the peace of feeling it no longer; and that though the best thing is to have, the next best is to want, and the worst of all is not to want.”

PeopleKnowsMenWantI CanHardFeelingsPainDesireSufferingNextAnswersSecretRaceWorstMinesMountainGuidesBest ThingsHearsay
Author:C. S. Lewis
Create image