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"51 C. S. Lewis Quotes & Sayings

      British     /     View profile
Born: November 29, 1898 Died: November 22, 1963 | Writer | Theologian |

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Happiness God Peace Us
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Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

Away Ever Given Nothing
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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.

Because Believe Christianity Else
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The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
Cut Deserts Down Educator
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Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

Christ Decay Despair Else
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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 Friendship Give Philosophy
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A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

Cell Darkness Diminish Glory
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Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Aim Earth Heaven Neither
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Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.

Achievement Fails Failures Finger
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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.

Noticed Often Original Originality
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Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Ahead Behind Better Kind
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Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

True Christianity False Importance
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Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.

Always Direct Implement Keep
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When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you'd been the only man in the world.

World Christ Died Individually
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Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

Walking Adult Come Fact
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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 Ineffective Largely Most
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Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

Courage Every Form Point
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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.

Expense Gratified Instinct Claim
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If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

Capitalists Criminals Cut Enemies
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The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

Everyone Future Hour Minutes
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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Creatures Dark Eyes Found
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Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.
Imagination Meaning Natural Truth
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The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Gentle Gradual Hell Milestones
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Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ.

Afflictions Anxieties Christ Defect
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A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

Humility Infinitely Listening Lying
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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.

Simply Become Competence Daily
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This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

Being Gives Love Miracles
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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.

Big Infinite Infinitely Left
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It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

Hatched Indefinitely Jolly Just
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We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Progress Case Doing Man
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Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

Across Large Letters Miracles
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You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.
Big Book Cup Enough
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Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

Earth Escapes Human Iniquity
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Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Affection Durable Happiness Lives
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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.

Begin Comfort Despair Either
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I gave in, and admitted that God was God.
Admitted Gave God
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There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'

Done God Kinds People
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An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
Cause Explanation Justification Reason
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Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

Nonsense Questions Quite Mortal
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No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

Ever Fear Felt Grief
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The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

Believing Humble People Pious
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Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

Inhabit Animals Belong Eternal
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I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

Joy Pleasures Sometimes Whether
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Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.
Break Fact Laws Miracles
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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.

Call Instrument Man Nature
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Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time.

Apart Before Began Done
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A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

Atheist Cannot Careful Man
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If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Another Desire Experience Explanation
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Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us... While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable, we will not surrender it to Him. What, then, can God do in our interests but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness?

Happiness Hard Interests Less
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'Good English' is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another.

Another Educated English Good
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C. S. Lewis Quotes & Sayings