C. S. Lewis quotes - page 12

No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice. (C. S. Lewis)
The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing - to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from - my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Joy is the serious business of heaven. View quote
C. S. Lewis
The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity", and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man. View quote
C. S. Lewis
The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair. View quote
C. S. Lewis
If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world. View quote
C. S. Lewis
A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery. View quote
C. S. Lewis
We are not living in a world where all roads are radii if a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. View quote
C. S. Lewis
The love of knowledge is a kind of madness. (C. S. Lewis)
Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes. View quote
C. S. Lewis
No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.' View quote
C. S. Lewis
Pilate was merciful till it became risky. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out. View quote
C. S. Lewis
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. View quote
C. S. Lewis
When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you'd been the only man in the world. View quote
C. S. Lewis
I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality. View quote
C. S. Lewis
Now, to-day, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. (C. S. Lewis)
Friends are not primarily absorbed in each other. View quote
C. S. Lewis
What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then–that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it. View quote
C. S. Lewis
We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. View quote
C. S. Lewis
We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. View quote
C. S. Lewis