Inspirational Quotes by C.S. Lewis
“The approval of one’s own conscience is a very heady draft; and specially for those who are not accustomed to it.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“Have you any knowledge of the seas and lands further east than this?” “I saw them long ago,” said the Old Man, “but it was from a great height. I cannot tell you such things as sailors need to know.” “Do you mean you were flying in the air?” Eustace blurted out. “I was a long way above the air, my son,” replied the Old Man. “I am Ramandu. But I see that you stare at one another and have not heard this name. And no wonder, for the days when I was a star had ceased long before any of you knew this world, and all the constellations have changed.” “Golly,” said Edmund under his breath. “He’s a star.” “Aren’t you a star any longer?” asked Lucy. “I am a star at rest, my daughter,” answered Ramandu.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“Now then, now then,” came the Cabby’s voice, a good firm, hardy voice. “Keep cool, everyone, that’s what I say. No bones broken, anyone? Good. Well, there’s something to be thankful for straight away, and more than anyone could expect after falling all that way. Now, if we’ve fallen down some diggings – as it might be for a new station on the Underground – someone will come and get us out presently, see! And if we’re dead – which I don’t deny it might be – well, you got to remember that worse things ’appen at sea and a chap’s got to die sometime. And there ain’t nothing to be afraid of if a chap’s led a decent life. And if you ask me, I think the best thing we could do to pass the time would be sing a ’ymn.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“The effect of modern war is to eliminate retrogressive types, while sparing the technocracy and increasing its hold upon public affairs.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“Can you really have thought that love and joy would always be at the mercy of frowns and sighs? Did you not know they were stronger than their opposites?”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Great Divorce
“The real trouble is water. Two casks seem to have got a leak knocked in them and are empty. (Narnian efficiency again.)”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“It’s a weapon on the other side. It leaps quicker than light from the highest place to the lowest to bring healing and joy, whatever the cost to itself. It changes darkness into light [112] and evil into good. But it will not, at the cunning tears of Hell, impose on good the tyranny of evil. Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still having jaundice, nor make a midden of the world’s garden for the sake of some who cannot abide the smell of roses.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Great Divorce
“I am the great scholar, the magician, the adept, who is doing the experiment. Of course I need subjects to do it on.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“I am Ramandu. But I see that you stare at one another and have not heard this name. And no wonder, for the days when I was a star had ceased long before any of you knew this world, and all the constellations have changed.” “Golly,” said Edmund under his breath. “He’s a star.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“Of course, there are universal rules to which all goodness must conform. But that’s only the grammar of virtue. It’s not there that the sap is. He doesn’t make”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“If it would help you and if it were possible I would go down with you into Hell: but you cannot bring Hell into me.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Great Divorce
“If anyone had asked him “Where did you come from?” he would probably have said, “I’ve always been here.” That was what it felt like—as if one had always been in that place and never been bored although nothing had ever happened.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“The others all voted for going in the hope of finding land. I felt it my duty to point out that we didn’t know there any land ahead and tried to get them to see the dangers of ”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“When Logres really dominates Britain, when the goddess Reason, the divine clearness, is really enthroned in France, when the order of Heaven is really followed in China—why, then it will be spring. But meantime, our concern is with Logres.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved.” “Ye see it does not.” “I feel in a way that it ought to.” “That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it.” “What?” “The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to /veto/ Heaven.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Great Divorce
“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different...”
“All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”.”
“The Moral Law does not give us any grounds for thinking that God is "good" in the sense of being indulgent, or soft, or sympathetic. There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.”
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Clive Staples Lewis was born in Ireland, in Belfast on 29 November 1898. His mother was a devout Christian and made efforts to influence his beliefs. When she died in his early youth her influence waned and Lewis was subject to the musings and mutterings of his friends who were decidedly agnostic and atheistic. It would not be until later, in a moment of clear rationality that he first came to a belief in God and later became a Christian.
C. S. Lewis volunteered for the army in 1917 and was wounded in the trenches in World War I. After the war, he attended university at Oxford. Soon, he found himself on the faculty of Magdalen College where he taught Mediaeval and Renaissance English.
Throughout his academic career he wrote clearly on the topic of religion. His most famous works include the Screwtape Letters and the Chronicles of Narnia. The atmosphere at Oxford and Cambridge tended to skepticism. Lewis used this skepticism as a foil. He intelligently saw Christianity as a necessary fact that could be seen clearly in science.
"Surprised by Joy" is Lewis's autobiography chronicling his reluctant conversion from atheism to Christianity in 1931.