C. S. Lewis Quotes

1,151 Sourced Quotes

It was not for societies or states, that Christ died, but for men.

C. S. Lewis
What the soul cries out for is the resurrection of the senses. Even in this life, matter would be nothing to us if it were not the source of sensations.

C. S. Lewis
The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the 'first fruits,' the pioneer of life,' He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so.

C. S. Lewis
There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the doctrine of hell, if it lay in my power. But it has the support of Scripture and, especially, of our Lord's own words; it has always been held by the Christian Church, and it has the support of reason.

C. S. Lewis
Many people think their prayers are never answered because it is the answered ones they forget.

C. S. Lewis
Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you - the part that chooses - into something a little different than what it was before. Taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.

C. S. Lewis
The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven.

C. S. Lewis
But however happy you are feeling, you can't talk with your mouth full of snow.

C. S. Lewis
Our souls demand Purgatory, don't they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into joy? Should we not reply, With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleansed first. It may hurt, you know-even so, sir.

C. S. Lewis
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistake of our own period. And that means the old books.

C. S. Lewis
You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring into his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.

C. S. Lewis
I could well believe that it is God's intention, since we have refused milder remedies, to compel [Christians] into unity, by persecution even. Satan is without doubt nothing else than a hammer in the hand of a benevolent and severe God.

C. S. Lewis
All these toys were never intended to possess my heart. My true good is in another world, and my only real treasure is Christ.

C. S. Lewis
It takes all sorts to make a world; or a church. This may be even truer of a church. If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell.

C. S. Lewis
As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the faith. We give in too much. Now, I don't mean that we should run the risk of making a nuisance of ourselves by witnessing at improper times, but there comes a time when we must show that we disagree.

C. S. Lewis
A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others...thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.

C. S. Lewis
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best.

C. S. Lewis
All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it, tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.'

C. S. Lewis
The Christian has a great advantage over other men, not by being less fallen than they, nor less doomed to live in a fallen world, but by knowing that he is a fallen man in a fallen world.

C. S. Lewis
They tell me, Lord, that when I seem
To be in speech with you.
Since but one voice is heard, it

C. S. Lewis
Keep clear of psychiatrists unless you know that they are also Christians. Otherwise they start with the assumption that your religion is an illusion and try to 'cure' it: and this assumption they make not as professional psychologists but as amateur philosophers.

C. S. Lewis
The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

C. S. Lewis
You can't get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.

C. S. Lewis
When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only person in the world.

C. S. Lewis
Progress means movement in a desired direction, and we do not all desire the same things for our species.

C. S. Lewis
We do not see into men's hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to judge.

C. S. Lewis
When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love.

C. S. Lewis
The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good - anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers'. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business.

C. S. Lewis
It's like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness. The sense that some shattering and disarming simplicity is the real answer.

C. S. Lewis
This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea, and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal.

C. S. Lewis