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C. S. Lewis Quotes

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Famous C. S. Lewis Quotes

“But what would have been the good?" Aslan said nothing. "You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right – somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?" "To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that." "Oh dear," said Lucy. "But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me – what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.”

IfsKnowsWayMeanChildrenHas BeensSaidHappensHappenedPleaseFindingsDearGet UpOne WayFollow MeLucy
Book:The Chronicles of Narnia Vol II: Prince Caspian
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“You can be good for the mere sake of goodness; you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness. You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong - only because cruelty is pleasant or useful to him, In other words, badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.”

WayGivingFirstsKindFeelingsActionSpeakCan DoPleasureKindnessSucceedGoodnessMereSakeBe GoodCrueltyPleasantSpoiledBadnessBeing Bad
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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“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.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“The value of the Old Testament may be dependant on what seems its imperfection. It may repel one use in order that we may be forced to use it in another way-to find the Word in it...to re-live, while we read, the whole Jewish experience of God's gradual and graded self-revelation, to feel the very contentions between the Word and the human material through which it works.”

WayFeelsHumansMaySelfWholeUseSeemsValuesOrderMaterialsBibleRevelationsImperfectionBiblicalTestamentAnother WayOld TestamentContentionSelf Revelation
Author:C. S. Lewis
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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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“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.”

IfsMenWayDoeShowsTakenInspirational LifeEvidenceIllHidingShow MeRatsCellarsProvocationIll Tempered
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.”

WorldWayLoveDoeMadeMatterWholeLife IsThreeDramaTrue LoveRoundsPatternsPersonal Life
Book:The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis
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“In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers-or should I say, nurses?-will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.”

MenWayWantShouldMayLittlesRealMightTeacherPlansTeachingIgnoranceWasteFellowsBusySpreadNurseShould IPenaltiesToilIncentivesConceitToo BusyAbolitionReassuringDuncesVermin
Book:The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast
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“We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way (there is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.”

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Book:An Experiment in Criticism
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“These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.”

ThinkingKnowsWayFirstsHumansTwoIdeasFactsWantedEarthLawCertainUniverseHuman BeingsBreakClearOughtFoundationCuriousBehaveLaws Of NatureClear Thinking
Book:Mere Christianity
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“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.”

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Book:Mere Christianity
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“Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.”

MenWayNeedsHas BeensProcessRealizingSinMovementReadyArmsCreaturesLaysSorryTrackSpeedImprovementSurrenderHolesFallenRepentanceRebelImperfectLaying Down
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that his operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give him our confidence in spite of this.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death -- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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