“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
History
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
ReligionAll Quotes by C. S. Lewis
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
Good“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Religion“Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.”
Time“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
God“Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.”
War“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”
Courage“I gave in, and admitted that God was God.”
Faith“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.”
Art“Eros will have naked bodies Friendship naked personalities.”
Friendship“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”
Life“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.”
God“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
Truth“Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.”
Nature“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”
Art“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
Experience“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
Fear“What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.”
Men“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.”
Happiness“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
Education