Inspirational Quotes by C.S. Lewis

“The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.”

“Of course I know that the Enemy also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way. Remember always, that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever. Hence, while He is delighted to see them sacrificing even their innocent wills to His, He hates to see them drifting away from their own nature for any other reason. And we should always encourage them to do so. The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the Enemy has furnished him. To get him away from those is therefore always a point gained; even in things indifferent it is always desirable to substitute the standards of the World, or convention, or fashion, for a human’s own real likings and dislikings. I myself would carry this very far. I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for county cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such”

“Olhei e vi a última coisa que esperava ver: um enorme leão avançando para mim. E era estranho porque, apesar de não haver lua, por onde o leão passava havia luar. Foi chegando, chegando. E eu, apavorado. Você talvez pense que eu, sendo um dragão, poderia derrubar a fera com a maior facilidade. Mas não era esse tipo de medo. Não temia que me comesse, mas tinha medo dele... não sei se está entendendo o que quero dizer... Chegou pertinho de mim e me olhou nos olhos. Fechei os meus, mas não adiantou nada, porque ele me disse que o seguisse.”

“Becoming the Enemy Where the tide flows towards increasing State control, Christianity, with its claims in one way personal and in the other way ecumenical and both ways antithetical to omnicompetent government, must always in fact (though not for a long time yet in words) be treated as an enemy. Like learning, like the family, like any ancient and liberal profession, like the common law, it gives the individual a standing ground against the State. Hence Rousseau, the father of the totalitarians, said wisely enough, from his own point of view, of Christianity, je ne connais rien de plus contrarie a l’esprit social [I know nothing more opposed to the social spirit] . . . . What a society has, that, be sure, and nothing else will it hand on to its young. The work is urgent, for men perish around us.”

“AN EXPLANATION OF TIME: “Son,” he said, “ye cannot in your present state understand eternity . . . . But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences’: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except”

“Because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but we cannot feel it). No emotion is, in itself, a judgment: in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.”

“To know what would happen, No. Nobody is every told that.”

“Come on,' said Peter suddenly to Edmund and Lucy. 'Our time's up.' 'What do you mean?' said Edmund. 'This way,' said Susan, who seemed to know all about it. 'Back into the trees. We've got to change.' 'Change what?' asked Lucy. "Our clothes, of course,' said Susan. 'Nice fools we'd look on the platform of an English station in these.' 'But our other things are at Caspian's castle,' said Edmund. 'No, they're not,' said Peter, still leading the way into the thickest wood. 'They're all here. They were brought down in bundles this morning. It's all arranged.' 'Was that what Aslan was talking to you and Susan about this morning?' asked Lucy. 'Yes - that and other things,' said Peter, his face very solemn. 'I can't tell it to you all. There were things he wanted to say to Su and me because we're not coming back to Narnia.' 'Never?' cried Edmund and Lucy in dismay. 'Oh, you two are,' answered Peter. 'At least, from what he said, I'm pretty sure he means you to get back some day. But not Su and me. He says we're getting too old.' 'Oh, Peter,' said Lucy. 'What awful bad luck. Can you bear it?' 'Well, I think I can,' said Peter. 'It's all rather different from what I thought. You'll understand when it comes to your last time. But, quick, here are our things.”

“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different...”

“During one walk, Jack engaged in the first metaphysical argument that he can remember. It concerned the nature of the future: Is it like a line that you can’t see or a line that is not yet drawn? He would delight in such arguments for the rest of his life.”

“To the end of his life he enjoyed traveling by train, the slower the better, and, if possible, in the front carriage.”

“– what does old Donne say? “God knows in what part of the world every grain of every man’s dust lies”

“Well, well. What can’t be cured must be endured. This is our last hope gone. We shall be reduced to ringing minors.”

“you were speaking just now with a good deal of feeling about Treble Bob—you are not, yourself, by any chance, a ringer?” “Well,” said Wimsey, “I used at one time to pull quite a pretty rope. But whether, at this time of day——”

“It will come back to you,” cried the Rector, feverishly. “It will come back. Half an hour with the handbells——”

“Not in the least, Mrs. Venables. Nothing would please me more than to ring bells all day and all night. I am not tired at all. I really don’t need rest. I would far rather ring bells. The only thing that worries me is whether I shall be able to get through the peal without making stupid mistakes.”

“I assure your lordship that for the first time in my existence I regret that I have made no practical study of campanology.” “I am always so delighted to find that there are things you cannot do. Did you ever try?”

“Bells, it may be noted, like ships and kittens, have a way of being female, whatever names they are given.”

“Well, it is the law, my lord,’ replied Mr Blundell, ‘and it’s not my place to argue about it.”

“Poor little Hilary Thorpe wasn’t in church,’ she observed. ‘Such a nice child. I should have liked you to see her. But she’s quite prostrated, poor child, so Mrs Gates tells me. And you know, the village people do stare so at anybody who’s in trouble and they will want to talk and condole. They mean well, but it’s a terrible ordeal.”