54 Quotes & Sayings By C S Lewis

C. S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland on June 29, 1898. He died in Oxford, England on November 22, 1963 Read more

He was a writer, philosopher, and Christian apologist whose other works include The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Four Loves. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

1
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." C. S. Lewis
2
Christianity if false is not important. If Christianity is true however it is of infinite importance. What it cannot be is moderately important. C. S. Lewis
3
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it but because I see everything by it. C. S. Lewis
4
Not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point which means at the point of highest reality. C. S. Lewis
5
Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point. C. S. Lewis
6
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour whatever he does whoever he is. C. S. Lewis
7
Unsatisfied desire is in itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. C. S. Lewis
8
Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods. C. S. Lewis
9
Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn you will find yourself disliking him less. C. S. Lewis
10
The higher animals are in a sense drawn into Man when he loves them and makes them (as he does) much more nearly human than they would otherwise be. C. S. Lewis
11
Though our feelings come and go God's love for us does not. C. S. Lewis
12
True friends ... face in the same direction toward common projects interests goals. C. S. Lewis
13
Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in aim at earth and you get neither. C. S. Lewis
14
The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope soft underfoot without sudden turnings without milestones without signposts. C. S. Lewis
15
Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him. C. S. Lewis
16
A woman means by unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others a man means not giving trouble to others. Thus each sex regards the other as basically selfish. C. S. Lewis
17
We must lay before him what is in us not what ought to be in us. C. S. Lewis
18
Prayer in the sense of petition asking for things is a small part of it confession and penitence are its threshold adoration its sanctuary the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. C. S. Lewis
19
It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort. It's not the sort of comfort they supply there. C. S. Lewis
20
In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed. C. S. Lewis
21
Nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges that it should be resistant should be itself. Dream-furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang your knee. C. S. Lewis
22
The future is something which every one reaches at the rate of sixty miles an hour whatever he does whoever he is. C. S. Lewis
23
Joy is the serious business of Heaven. C. S. Lewis
24
Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. C. S. Lewis
25
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives. C. S. Lewis
26
Nothing is more dangerous to one's own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate. C. S. Lewis
27
What I call my 'self' now is hardly a person at all. It's mainly a meeting place for various natural forces, desires, and fears, etcetera, some of which come from my ancestors, and some from my education, some perhaps from devils. The self you were really intended to be is something that lives not from nature but from God. C. S. Lewis
28
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. C. S. Lewis
29
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. C. S. Lewis
30
How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete. C. S. Lewis
31
You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. C. S. Lewis
32
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? C. S. Lewis
33
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. C. S. Lewis
34
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. C. S. Lewis
35
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. C. S. Lewis
36
'Good English' is whatever educated people talk so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another. C. S. Lewis
37
Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time. C. S. Lewis
38
History isn't just the story of bad people doing bad things. It's quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong. C. S. Lewis
39
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. C. S. Lewis
40
This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted. C. S. Lewis
41
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. C. S. Lewis
42
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.' C. S. Lewis
43
There is no uncreated being except God. God has no opposite. C. S. Lewis
44
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. C. S. Lewis
45
Reason is the natural order of truth but imagination is the organ of meaning. C. S. Lewis
46
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. C. S. Lewis
47
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. C. S. Lewis
48
There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. C. S. Lewis
49
I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least. C. S. Lewis
50
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. C. S. Lewis
51
Eros will have naked bodies Friendship naked personalities. C. S. Lewis
52
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. C. S. Lewis
53
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. C. S. Lewis