Inspirational Quotes by C.S. Lewis

“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.”

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

“the greater the love the greater the grief, and the stronger the faith the more savagely will Satan storm its fortress.”

“But oh God, tenderly, tenderly. Already, month by month and week by week you broke her body on the wheel whilst she still wore it. Is it not yet enough?”

“For at that very moment, whether because the Sea Serpent was being pushed so hard, or because it foolishly decided to draw the noose tight, the whole of the carved stern broke off and the ship was free. The others were too exhausted to see what Lucy saw. There, a few yards behind them, the loop of Sea Serpent’s body got rapidly smaller and disappeared into a splash. Lucy always said (but of course she was very excited at the moment, and it may have been only imagination) that she saw a look of idiotic satisfaction on the creature’s face. What is certain is that it was a very stupid animal, for instead of pursuing the ship it turned its head round and began nosing all along its own body as if it expected to find the wreckage of the there. But the was already well away, running before a fresh breeze, and the men lay and sat panting and groaning all about the deck, till presently they were able to talk about it, and then to laugh about it. And when some rum had been served out they even raised a cheer; and everyone praised the valor or Eustace (though it hadn’t done any good) and of Reepicheep.”

“A perception of this truth lies at the back of the universal human feeling that bad men ought to suffer. It is no use turning up our noses at this feeling, as if it were wholly base. On its mildest level it appeals to everyone’s sense of justice. Once”

“The most unliterary reader of all sticks to 'the news'. He reads daily, with unwearied relish, how, in some place he has never seen, under circumstances which never become quite clear, someone he doesn't know has married, rescued, robbed, raped, or murdered someone else he doesn't know.”

“There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. and when Christ quotes that commandment He uses the murder one in all three accounts, matthew, mark, and Luke. and i am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew. all killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery”

“Cristo nos ofrece algo por nada. Incluso nos lo ofrece todo por nada. En cierto modo, toda la vida cristiana consiste en aceptar este asombroso ofrecimiento. Pero la dificultad está en alcanzar el punto en el que reconocemos qué todo lo que hemos hecho y podemos hacer es nada. Lo que nos habría gustado es que Dios hubiera tenido en cuenta nuestros puntos a favor y hubiese ignorado nuestros puntos en contra. Una vez más, en cierto modo, puede decirse que ninguna tentación es superada hasta que no dejamos de intentar superarla… hasta que no tiramos la toalla. Pero, claro, no podríamos «dejar de intentarlo» del modo adecuado y por la razón adecuada hasta que no lo hubiéramos intentado con todas nuestras fuerzas. Y, en otro sentido aún, dejarlo todo en manos de Cristo no significa, naturalmente, que dejemos de intentarlo. Confiar en El quiere decir, por supuesto, intentar hacer todo lo que Él dice. No tendría sentido decir que confiamos en una persona si no vamos a seguir su consejo. Así, si verdaderamente os habéis puesto en Sus manos, de esto debe seguirse que estáis tratando de obedecerle. Pero lo estáis haciendo de una manera nueva, de una manera menos preocupada.”

“Si alguien es libre de ser bueno también es libre de ser malo. Y el libre albedrío es lo que ha hecho posible el mal. ¿Por qué, entonces, nos ha dado Dios el libre albedrío? Porque el libre albedrío, aunque haga posible el mal, es también lo único que hace que el amor, la bondad o la alegría merezcan la pena tenerse. Un mundo de autómatas —de criaturas que funcionasen como máquinas— apenas merecería ser creado. La felicidad que Dios concibe para Sus criaturas más evolucionadas es la felicidad de estar libre y voluntariamente unidas a El y entre sí en un éxtasis de amor y deleite comparado con el cual el amor más arrobado entre hombre y mujer en este mundo es mera insignificancia. Y para ello deben ser libres.”