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C.S. Lewis

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The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may think he does, but when he is brought to the test it proves otherwise... For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms.
From The Four Loves
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.
From A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.
From Letters to Children
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
From The Abolition of Man
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Aslan: You doubt your value. Don't run from who you are.
From Prince Caspian
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
From The Screwtape Letters
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
From The Weight of Glory
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
From Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
A clever schoolboy's reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
NOT YET RATING ▼
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!
From The Last Battle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
[N]early all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
From Mere Christianity
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
From The Weight of Glory
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Once very near the end I said, 'If you can -- if it is allowed -- come to me when I too am on my death bed.' 'Allowed!' she said. 'Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I'd break it into bits.
From A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
You know me better than you think, you know, and you shall know me better yet.
From The Magician’s Nephew
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may think he does, but when he is brought to the test it proves otherwise... For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms.
From The Four Loves
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.
From A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.
From Letters to Children
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
From The Abolition of Man
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Aslan: You doubt your value. Don't run from who you are.
From Prince Caspian
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
From The Screwtape Letters
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
From The Weight of Glory
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
From Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
A clever schoolboy's reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
NOT YET RATING ▼
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!
From The Last Battle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
[N]early all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
From Mere Christianity
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
From The Weight of Glory
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Once very near the end I said, 'If you can -- if it is allowed -- come to me when I too am on my death bed.' 'Allowed!' she said. 'Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I'd break it into bits.
From A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
You know me better than you think, you know, and you shall know me better yet.
From The Magician’s Nephew
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may think he does, but when he is brought to the test it proves otherwise... For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms.
From The Four Loves
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.
From A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.
From Letters to Children
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
From The Abolition of Man
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Aslan: You doubt your value. Don't run from who you are.
From Prince Caspian
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
From The Screwtape Letters
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
From The Weight of Glory
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
From Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
A clever schoolboy's reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
NOT YET RATING ▼
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!
From The Last Battle
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
[N]early all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
From Mere Christianity
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
From The Weight of Glory
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Once very near the end I said, 'If you can -- if it is allowed -- come to me when I too am on my death bed.' 'Allowed!' she said. 'Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I'd break it into bits.
From A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
You know me better than you think, you know, and you shall know me better yet.
From The Magician’s Nephew
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
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