C. S. Lewis - Mere Christianity (1952)

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As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only "as harmless as doves," but also "as wise as serpents." He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head.

C. S. Lewis
The devil loves 'curing' a small fault by giving you a great one.

C. S. Lewis
The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.

C. S. Lewis
The real job of every moral teacher is to keep bringing us back to the simple principles, which we're so anxious not to see.

C. S. Lewis
But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

C. S. Lewis
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.

C. S. Lewis
God is love, and that love works through men-especially through the whole community of Christians.

C. S. Lewis
Love...is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself.

C. S. Lewis
If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.

C. S. Lewis
On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him.

C. S. Lewis
If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing-rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.

C. S. Lewis
Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever.

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

C. S. Lewis
God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

C. S. Lewis
We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.

C. S. Lewis
Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.

C. S. Lewis
Christ says, 'Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You.'

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

C. S. Lewis
Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing.

C. S. Lewis
A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.

C. S. Lewis
When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world

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

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

C. S. Lewis
The first thing to get clear about Christian morality between man and man is that in this department Christ did not come to teach any brand new morality. The Golden Rule of the New Testament (Do as you would be done by) is a summing up of what everyone, at bottom, had always known to be right.

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