Inspirational Quotes by C.S. Lewis
“There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
“God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies.”
topics: mere-christianity-god
“She felt frightened only for a second. For one thing, the world beneath her was so very far away that it seemed to have nothing to do with her.”
“But we inherit a whole system of desires which do not necessarily contribute God's will but which, after centuries of usurped autonomy steadfastly ignore it. If the thing we like doing is, in fact, the thing God wants us to do, yet that is not our reason for doing it; it remains a mere happy coincidence. We cannot therefore know that we are acting at all, or primarily, for God's sake, unless the material of the action is contrary to our inclination or (in other words) painful and what we cannot know that we are choosing, we cannot choose. The full acting out of the self's surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination. How impossible it is to enact the surrender of the self by doing what we like...”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Problem of Pain
“a creature who has kept a planet in its orbit for several billions of years will be able to manage a packing case!”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from Perelandra
“I must say my prayers today whether I feel devout or not; but that is only as I must learn my grammar if I am ever to read the poets.”
“Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.”
“But I want her, I must have her, I shall die if I do not get her - false, proud, black-hearted daughter of a dog that she is! I cannot sleep and my food has no savor and my eyes are darkened because of her beauty. I must have the barbarian queen.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones--bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.”
“I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Last Battle
“In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who “happen to be there.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Four Loves
“It's all in Plato, all in Plato: Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools? - Digory Kirke”
― C.S. Lewis ,
from The Last Battle
“the ‘story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”
“he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him—the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say ‘Thy will be done’, and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible,”
“This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good! But I will give him the only gift he is still able to receive.”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“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 ,
“This is the reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little you might come to know me better there". -Aslan, Voyage of the Dawn Treader”
― C.S. Lewis ,
“Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists - not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time.”
Group of Brands
© 2026 Bibleportal.com All rights reserved.
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.