Inspirational Quotes by C.S. Lewis

“Stop it,” spluttered Eustace, “go away. Put that thing away. It’s not safe. Stop it, I say. I’ll tell Caspian. I’ll have you muzzled and tied up.” “Why do you not draw your own sword, poltroon!” cheeped the Mouse. “Draw and fight or I’ll beat you black and blue with the flat.” “I haven’t got one,” said Eustace. “I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe in fighting.” “Do I understand,” said Reepicheep, withdrawing his sword for a moment and speaking very sternly, “that you do not intend to give me satisfaction?” “I don’t know what you mean,” said Eustace, nursing his hand. “If you don’t know how to take a joke I shan’t bother my head about you.” “Then take that,” said Reepicheep, “and that--to teach you manners--and the respect due to a knight--and a Mouse--and a Mouse’s tail--” and at each word he gave Eustace a blow with the side of his rapier, which was thin, fine, dwarf-tempered steel and as supple and effective as a birch rod.”

“We do not know what happens after death, but I suspect that all of us still have a great deal to learn, and that learning is not necessarily easy.”

“La ilusión de la creatura de ser autosuficiente debe, por su propio bien, ser destrozada; y Dios la destroza mediante problemas o miedo a los problemas en la tierra, mediante el crudo temor a las llamas eternas, “sin pensar en la disminución de su gloria”.”

“Perhaps your Majesty would like to taste it first,” said Drinian to Caspian. The King took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then drank deeply and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes but everything about him seemed to be brighter. “Yes,” he said, “it is sweet. That’s real water, that. I’m not sure that it isn’t going to kill me. But it is the death I would have chosen--if I’d known about it till now.”

“the ultimate purpose of God’s love for all of us human creatures is love.”

“في أيامنا هذه نحن نقصد بصلاح الله حصرياً تقريباً، محبته، و قد نكون على حق في ذلك. في هذا السياق، معظمنا يعني بالحب، اللطف و الحنان، أو الرغبة في رؤية الآخرين أكثر سعادة من النفس، ليس أن نراهم سعداء بهذه الطريقة أو تلك، بل فقط سعداء. فالذي يمكن أن يرضينا حقاً هو إله يقول على أي شيء نحب أن نفعله، "ماذا يهم، طالما أنهم راضون و قانعون؟" في الحقيقة نحن لا نريد "أباً" في السماء قدر ما نريد "جَداً" في السماء، شيخاً عجوزاً مسناً، الذي كما يقولون، "يحب أن يرى الشباب يستمتعون". و الذي خطته لأجل الكون ببساطة أن يُقال فعلياً في نهاية كل يوم، "لقد إستمتع الجميع بوقت طيب" أنا لا أزعم أنني إستثناء لذلك: كنت أرغب كثيراً في أن أعيش في عالم تحكمه مثل هذه الأفكار الخاطئة. لكن حيث أنه من الواضح بشدة أنني لا أستطيع ذلك، و حيث أن لدي سبب لكي أعتقد، رغم ذلك، أن الله محبة، فإني أستنتج أن مفهومي عن الحب يحتاج إلى تصحيح إن الحب هو شيء أكثر صرامة و قوة و روعة من مجرد اللطف. نعم هناك لطف في الحب: لكن الحب واللطف ليا متزامنين و متماثلين”

“did,” said Aslan. “Do you think I wouldn’t obey my own rules?”

“grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn’t seem worth starting anything. I can’t settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.”

“حقيقة أن الله يمكنه أن يصنع خيراً مركباً من الشر البسيط لا تُبرر – رغم أنها بالرحمة يمكن أن تخلّص – أولئك الذين يصنعون الشر البسيط. لأنك بالتأكيد ستحقق غرض الله، بأية طريقة تتصرف بها، لكن الإختلاف يكمن بالنسبة لك فيما إذا كنت تخدمه مثل يهوذا أم مثل يوحنا”

“I can’t understand this. There is not a breath of wind. The sail hangs dead. The sea is as flat as a pond. And yet we drive on as fast as if there were a gale behind us.” “I’ve been thinking that, too,” said Caspian. “We must be caught in some strong current.” “H’m,” said Edmund. “That’s not so nice if the World really has an edge and we’re getting near it.” “You mean,” said Caspian, “that we might be just--well, poured over it?” “Yes, yes,” cried Reepicheep, clapping his paws together. “That’s how I’ve always imagined it--the World like a great round table and the waters of all the oceans endlessly pouring over the edge. The ship will tip up--stand on her head--for one moment we shall see over the edge--and then, down, down, the rush, the speed--” “And what do you think will be waiting for us at the bottom, eh?” said Drinian. “Aslan’s country, perhaps,” said the Mouse, its eyes shining. “Or perhaps there isn’t any bottom. Perhaps it goes down for ever and ever. But whatever it is, won’t it be worth anything just to have looked for one moment beyond the edge of the world.” “But look here,” said Eustace, “this is all rot. The world’s round--I mean, round like a ball, not like a table.” “ world is,” said Edmund. “But is this?” “Do you mean to say,” asked Caspian, “that you three come from a round world (round like a ball) and you’ve never told me! It’s really too bad of you. Because we have fairy-tales in which there are round worlds and I always loved them. I never believed there were any real ones. But I’ve always wished there were and I’ve always longed to live in one. Oh, I’d give anything--I wonder why you can get into our world and we never get into yours? If only I had the chance! It must be exciting to live on a thing like a ball. Have you ever been to the parts where people walk about upside-down?” Edmund shook his head. “And it isn’t like that,” he added. “There’s nothing particularly exciting about a round world when you’re there.”

“For in grief nothing stays put. One keeps emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats.”

“In a game of chess you can make certain arbitrary concessions to your opponent, which stand to the ordinary rules of the game as miracles stand to the laws of nature. You can deprive yourself of a castle, or allow the other man sometimes to take back a move made inadvertently. But if you conceded everything that at any moment happened to suit him — if all his moves were revocable and if all your pieces disappeared whenever their position on the board was not to his liking — then you could not have a game at all. So it is with the life of souls in a world: fixed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once limits within which their common life is confined and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”

“The invisible people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even "Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?”

“We had better not assume that the vicarious delights, in any of these kinds, are always substitutes for actual delights. It is not only the plain and unloved women who read the love stories; all who read success stories are not themselves failures”

“Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good.”

“Eternity is quite distinct from perpetuity, from mere endless continuance in time. Perpetuity is only the attainment of an endless series of moments, each lost as soon as it is attained. Eternity is the actual and timeless fruition of illimitable life.”

“Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive,”

“Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better.”

“Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. 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. THE END”

“What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ—can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father—that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning. 9 Counting the Cost”