C. S. Lewis Quotes

1,151 Sourced Quotes

Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all the acts and events that fill time are the definition, and it must be lived.

C. S. Lewis
If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that his operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give him our confidence in spite of this.

C. S. Lewis
Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly.

C. S. Lewis
To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death -- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.

C. S. Lewis
Bad art is never really enjoyed in the same sense in which good art is enjoyed. It is only "liked": it never startles, prostrates, and takes captive.

C. S. Lewis
Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

C. S. Lewis
I#pray because the need flows out of me all the time-walking and sleeping. It does not change # God - it changes me.

C. S. Lewis
Nobody who gets enough food and clothing in a world where most are hungry and cold has any business to talk about 'misery.'

C. S. Lewis
Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is a nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.

C. S. Lewis
We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. No belief will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.

C. S. Lewis
Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.

C. S. Lewis
When an artist is in the strict sense working, he of course takes into account the existing tastes, interests and capacity of his audience. These no less than the language, the marble, the paint, are part of his aw material.; to be used, tamed, sublimated, not ignored or defied. Haughty indifference to them is not genius, it is laziness and incompetence.

C. S. Lewis
If devils exist, their first aim is to give you an anesthetic -- to put you off your guard. Only if that fails, do you become aware of them.

C. S. Lewis
It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

C. S. Lewis
The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum.

C. S. Lewis
One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.

C. S. Lewis
In silence and in meditation on the eternal truths, I hear the voice of God which excites our hearts to greater love.

C. S. Lewis
Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices.

C. S. Lewis
In the science, Evolution is a theory about changes; in the myth it is a fact about improvements.

C. S. Lewis
It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appreciation of the spiritual life with the life itself-to dream that you have waked, washed, and dressed and then to find yourself still in bed.

C. S. Lewis
Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits etc.) can do the journey on their own.

C. S. Lewis
Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I for one must get it out.

C. S. Lewis
Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.

C. S. Lewis
I mean, the more a man was in the Devil's power, the less he would be aware of it, on the principle that a man is still fairly sober as long as he knows he's drunk.

C. S. Lewis
Even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam--he is only nourishing or protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts.

C. S. Lewis
Your place in Heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it.

C. S. Lewis
In God's dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube.

C. S. Lewis
Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.

C. S. Lewis
And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another.

C. S. Lewis
The ancient man approached God (or even the gods)as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the bench and God is in the dock.

C. S. Lewis