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And That Is Enough To Raise Your Thoughts To What May Happen When The Redeemed Soul, Beyond All Hope And Nearly Beyond Belief, Learns At Last That She Has Pleased Him Whom She Was Created To Please. There Will Be No Room For Vanity Then. She Will Be Free From The Miserable Illusion That It Is Her Doing. With No Taint Of What We Should Now Call Self-approval She Will Most Innocently Rejoice In The Thing That God Has Made Her To Be, And The Moment Which Heals Her Old Inferiority Complex Forever Will Also Drown Her Pride… Perfect Humility Dispenses With Modesty.

-C. S. Lewis

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And That Is Enough

C. S. Lewis

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And That Is Enough To Raise Your Thoughts To What May Happen When The Redeemed Soul, Beyond All Hope And Nearly Beyond Belief, Learns At Last That She Has Pleased Him Whom She Was Created To Please. There Will Be No Room For Vanity Then. She Will Be Free From The Miserable Illusion That It Is Her Doing. With No Taint Of What We Should Now Call Self-approval She Will Most Innocently Rejoice In The Thing That God Has Made Her To Be, And The Moment Which Heals Her Old Inferiority Complex Forever Will Also Drown Her Pride… Perfect Humility Dispenses With Modesty.

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Free Will, Though It Makes Evil Possible, Also Makes Possible Any Love Or Goodness Or Joy Worth Having.

The Process Of Growing Up Is To Be Valued For What We Gain, Not For What We Lose.

An Open Mind, In Questions That Are Not Ultimate, Is Useful. But An Open Mind About The Ultimate Foundations Either Of Theoretical Or Of Practical Reason Is Idiocy. If A Man's Mind Is Open On These Things, Let His Mouth At Least Be Shut. He Can Say Nothing To The Purpose. Outside The Tao There Is No Ground For Criticizing Either The Tao Or Anything Else.

To Interest Is The First Duty Of Art; No Other Excellences Will Ever Begin To Compensate For Failure In This.

God Wants A Child's Heart And A Grownup's Head.

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.'

Fallen Man Is Not Simply An Imperfect Creature Who Needs Improvement: He Is A Rebel Who Must Lay Down His Arms.

I Have Swallowed Up Girls And Boys, Women And Men, Kings And Emperors, Cities And Realms," Said The Lion. It Didn't Say This As If It Were Boasting, Nor As If It Were Sorry, Nor As If It Were Angry. It Just Said It.

It Was Not For Societies Or States, That Christ Died, But For Men.

Those Who Have Nothing Can Share Nothing; Those Who Are Going Nowhere Can Have No Fellow-travellers.

That Is What Mortals Misunderstand. They Say Of Some Temporal Sufferring, "no Future Bliss Can Make Up For It" Not Knowing That Heaven, Once Attained, Will Work Backwards And Turn Even That Agony Into A Glory.

As Long As You Notice, And Have To Count The Steps, You Are Not Yet Dancing But Only Learning To Dance. A Good Shoe Is A Shoe You Don't Notice. Good Reading Becomes Possible When You Need Not Conciously Think About Eyes, Or Light, Or Print, Or Spelling. The Perfect Church Service Would Be The One We Were Almost Unaware Of; Our Attention Would Have Been On God.

Earthly Pleasures Were Never Meant To Satisfy.

Once You Were A Child. Once You Knew What Inquiry Was For. There Was A Time When You Asked Questions Because You Wanted Answers, And Were Glad When You Had Found Them. Become A Child Again, Even Now... You Have Gone Wrong. Thirst Was Made For Water; Inquiry For Truth.

We Must Picture Hell As A State Where Everyone Is Perpetually Concerned About His Own Dignity And Advancement, Where Everyone Has A Grievance, And Where Everyone Lives The Deadly Serious Passions Of Envy, Self-importance, And Resentment.

My Own Eyes Are Not Enough For Me; I Will See Through Those Of Others.

I See People, As They Approach Me, Trying To Make Up Their Minds Whether They'll 'say Something About It' Or Not. I Hate If They Do, And If They Don't.

When We Force A Boy To Be A Mediocrity In A Dozen Subjects We Destroy His Standards, Perhaps For Life.

Nothing Can Seem Extraordinary Until You Have Discovered What Is Ordinary.

I Don't Want To Hold You Hand!

While Friendship Has Been By Far The Chief Source Of My Happiness, Acquaintance Or General Society Has Always Meant Little To Me, And I Cannot Quite Understand Why A Man Should Wish To Know More People Than He Can Make Real Friends Of.

Goodness Is, So To Speak, Itself; Badness Is Only Spoiled Goodness. And There Must Be Something Good First Before It Can Be Spoiled.

We Can Never Know That A Piece Of Writing Is Bad Unless We Have Begun By Trying To Read It As If It Was Very Good And Ended By Discovering That We Were Paying The Author An Undeserved Compliment.

A Creature Revolting Against A Creator Is Revolting Against The Source Of His Own Powers-including Even His Power To Revolt...it Is Like The Scent Of A Flower Trying To Destroy The Flower.

The Theory That Thought Is Merely A Movement In The Brain Is, In My Opinion, Nonsense; For If So, That Theory Itself Would Be Merely A Movement, An Event Among Atoms, Which May Have Speed And Direction But Of Which It Would Be Meaningless To Use The Words 'true' Or 'false'.

I Felt Ashamed." "but Of What? Psyche, They Hadn't Stripped You Naked Or Anything?" "no, No, Maia. Ashamed Of Looking Like A Mortal -- Of Being A Mortal." "but How Could You Help That?" "don't You Think The Things People Are Most Ashamed Of Are Things They Can't Help?

For In Grief Nothing "stays Put." One Keeps On Emerging From A Phase, But It Always Recurs. Round And Round. Everything Repeats. Am I Going In Circles, Or Dare I Hope I Am On A Spiral? But If A Spiral, Am I Going Up Or Down It? How Often -- Will It Be For Always? -- How Often Will The Vast Emptiness Astonish Me Like A Complete Novelty And Make Me Say, "i Never Realized My Loss Till This Moment"? The Same Leg Is Cut Off Time After Time.

We Can Never Know What Might Have Been But What Is To Come Is Another Matter Entirely

We Are...a Divine Work Of Art, Something That God Is Making...something With Which He Will Not Be Satisfied Until It Has A Certain Character.

The Knight Is A Man Of Blood And Iron, A Man Familiar With The Sight Of Smashed Faces And The Ragged Stumps Of Lopped-off Limbs; He Is Also A Demure, Almost A Maidenlike, Guest In Hall, A Gentle, Modest, Unobtrusive Man. He Is Not A Compromise Or Happy Mean Between Ferocity And Meekness; He Is Fierce To The Nth And Meek To The Nth.

It Costs God Nothing, So Far As We Know, To Create Nice Things: But To Convert Rebellious Wills Cost Him Crucifixion.

Crucifixion Of Christ

Most Of Us Are Not Really Approaching The Subject In Order To Find Out What Christianity Says; We Are Approaching It In The Hope Of Finding Support From Christianity For The Views Of Our Own Party.

It Isn't Narnia, You Know," Sobbed Lucy. "it's You. We Shan't Meet You There. And How Can We Live, Never Meeting You?" "but You Shall Meet Me, Dear One," Said Aslan. "are -are You There Too, Sir?" Said Edmund. "i Am," Said Aslan. "but There I Have Another Name. You Must Learn To Know Me By That Name. This Was The Very Reason Why You Were Brought To Narnia, That By Knowing Me Here For A Little, You May Know Me Better There.

You Come Of The Lord Adam And The Lady Eve," Said Aslan. "and That Is Both Honour Enough To Erect The Head Of The Poorest Beggar, And Shame Enough To Bow The Shoulders Of The Greatest Emperor On Earth. Be Content.

The Story Itself Should Force Its Moral Upon You. You Find Out What The Moral Is By Writing The Story.

Good Philosophy Must Exist, If For No Other Reason, Because Bad Philosophy Needs To Be Answered.

Badness Is Only Spoiled Goodness.

He's Wild, You Know. Not Like A Tame Lion.

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

This Was Bad Grammar Of Course, But That Is How Beavers Talk When They Are Excited; I Mean, In Narnia--in Our World They Usually Don't Talk At All. - The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

You Find Out The Strength Of A Wind By Trying To Walk Against It, Not By Lying Down.

Selfishness Has Never Been Admired.

The Perfect Church Service Would Be One We Were Almost Unaware Of. Our Attention Would Have Been On God.

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.

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.

They Tell Me, Lord, That When I Seem To Be In Speech With You. Since But One Voice Is Heard, It

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Progress Means Movement In A Desired Direction, And We Do Not All Desire The Same Things For Our Species.

Every Poet And Musician And Artist, But For Grace">grace, Is Drawn Away From Love Of The Thing He Tells To Love Of The Telling Till, Down In Deep Hell, They Cannot Be Interested In God At All But Only In What They Say About Him.

When We Christians Behave Badly, Or Fail To Behave Well, We Are Making Christianity Unbelievable To The Outside World

Aslan's Instructions Always Work; There Are No Exceptions.

Aslan" Said Lucy "you're Bigger". "that Is Because You Are Older, Little One" Answered He. "not Because You Are?" "i Am Not. But Every Year You Grow, You Will Find Me Bigger".

The Dangers Of Apparent Self-sufficiency Explain Why Our Lord Regards The Vices Of The Feckless And Dissipated So Much More Leniently Than The Vices That Lead To Worldly Success.

Even If There Were Pains In Heaven, All Who Understand Would Desire Them.

Do Not Dare Not To Dare.

To Be A Christian Means To Forgive The Inexcusable Because God Has Forgiven The Inexcusable In You.

I Didn’t Go To Religion To Make Me Happy. I Always Knew A Bottle Of Port Would Do That. If You Want A Religion To Make You Feel Really Comfortable, I Certainly Don’t Recommend Christianity.

Christian Inspirational

The World Does Not Consist Of 100 Percent Christians And 100 Percent Non-christians. There Are People (a Great Many Of Them) Who Are Slowly Ceasing To Be Christians But Who Still Call Themselves By That Name: Some Of Them Are Clergymen. There Are Other People Who Are Slowly Becoming Christians Though They Do Not Yet Call Themselves So.

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Humility Is Self-forgetfulness.

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In A Word, We May Reasonably Hope For The Virtual Abolition Of Education When I'm As Good As You Has Fully Had Its Way. All Incentives To Learn And All Penalties For Not Learning Will Vanish.the Few Who Might Want To Learn Will Be Prevented; Who Are They To Overtop Their Fellows? And Anyway The Teachers-or Should I Say, Nurses?-will Be Far Too Busy Reassuring The Dunces And Patting Them On The Back To Waste Any Time On Real Teaching. We Shall No Longer Have To Plan And Toil To Spread Imperturable Conceit And Incurable Ignorance Among Men. The Little Vermin Themselves Will Do It For Us.

Suppose... Suppose We Have Only Dreamed And Made Up These Things Like Sun, Sky, Stars, And Moon, And Aslan Himself. In That Case, It Seems To Me That The Made-up Things Are A Good Deal Better Than The Real Ones. And If This Black Pits Of A Kingdom Is The Best You Can Make, Then It's A Poor World. And We Four Can Make A Dream World To Lick Your Real One Hollow.

We Want To Know Not How We Should Pray If We Were Perfect But How We Should Pray Being As We Now Are ... It Is No Use To Ask God With Factitious Earnestness For A When Our Whole Mind Is In Reality Filled With The Desire For B. We Must Lay Before Him What Is In Us, Not What Ought To Be In Us.

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.'

And He Writhed Inside At What Seemed The Cruelty And Unfairness Of The Demand. He Had Not Yet Learned That If You Do One Good Deed Your Reward Usually Is To Do Another And Harder And Better One.

There Might Be Things More Terrible Even Than Losing Someone You Love By Death.

Someone You Love

Love As Distinct From "being In Love" Is Not Merely A Feeling. It Is A Deep Unity, Maintained By The Will And Deliberately Strengthened By Habit.

All These Toys Were Never Intended To Possess My Heart. My True Good Is In Another World, And My Only Real Treasure Is Christ.

When You Are Happy, So Happy You Have No Sense Of Needing Him, So Happy That You Are Tempted To Feel His Claims Upon You As An Interruption, If You Remember Yourself And Turn To Him With Gratitude And Praise, You Will Be — Or So It Feels— Welcomed With Open Arms. But Go To Him When Your Need Is Desperate, When All Other Help Is Vain, And What Do You Find? A Door Slammed In Your Face, And A Sound Of Bolting And Double Bolting On The Inside. After That, Silence.

You People Have No Imagination!

The Command "be Ye Prfect" Is Not Idealistic Gas. Nor Is It A Command To Do The Impossible. He Said (in The Bible) That We Were "gods" And He Is Going To Make Good His Words. He Will Make Us Into A God Or Goddess, A Dazzling, Radiant, Immortal Creature...a Bright Stainless Mirror Which Reflects Back To God Perfectly.

The Gap Between Those Who Worship Different Gods Is Not So Wide As The Gap Between Those Who Worship And Those Who Don't.

Literary Experience Heals The Wound, Without Undermining The Privilege Of Individuality.. .here, As In Worship, In Love, In Moral Action, And In Knowing, I Transcend Myself; And Am Never More Myself Than When I Do.

Thus We Have Now For Many Centuries Triumphed Over Nature To The Extent Of Making Certain Secondary Characteristics Of The Male (such As The Beard) Disagreeable To Nearly All The Females—and There Is More In That Than You Might Suppose.

The Christian And The Materialist Hold Different Beliefs About The Universe. They Can't Both Be Right. The One Who Is Wrong Will Act In A Way Which Simply Doesn't Fit The Real Universe. Consequently, With The Best Will In The World, He Will Be Helping His Fellow Creatures To Their Destruction.

Christianity Does Not Want Us To Reduce By One Atom The Hatred We Feel For Cruelty And Treachery. We Ought To Hate Them. Not One Word Of What We Have Said About Them Needs To Be Unsaid. But It Does Want Us To Hate Them In The Same Way In Which We Hate Things In Ourselves: Being Sorry That The Man Should Have Done Such Things, And Hoping, If It Is Anyway Possible, That Somehow, Sometime, Somewhere He Can Be Cured And Made Human Again.

Of Course Language Is Not An Infallible Guide, But It Contains, With All Its Defects, A Good Deal Of Stored Insight And Experience.

Very Often What God First Helps Us Towards Is Not The Virtue Itself But Just This Power Of Always Trying Again.

She Did Not Shut It Properly Because She Knew That It Is Very Silly To Shut Oneself Into A Wardrobe, Even If It Is Not A Magic One.

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

A Sum Can Be Put Right: But Only By Going Back Till You Find The Error And Working It Afresh From That Point, Never By Simply Going On.

Not To Be, But To Seem, Virtuous - It Is A Formula Whose Utility We All Discovered In The Nursery.

Lucy Looked And Saw That Aslan Had Just Breathed On The Feet Of The Stone Giant. It's All Right!" Shouted Aslan Joyously. "once The Feet Are Put Right, All The Rest Of Him Will Follow.

A Thing May Be Morally Neutral And Yet The Desire For That Thing May Be Dangerous.

How Incessant And Great Are The Ills With Which A Prolonged Old Age Is Replete.

Always Winter But Never Christmas.

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

Very Often The Only Way To Get A Quality In Reality Is To Start Behaving As If You Had It Already.

When I'm Older I'll Understand" Said Lucy, " I Am Older And I Don't Think I Want To Understand", Replied Edmund

Failures Are Finger Posts On The Road To Achievement.

Reality, In Fact, Is Always Something You Couldn't Have Guessed. That's One Of The Reasons I Believe Christianity. It's A Religion You Couldn't Have Guessed.

When I Became A Man I Put Away Childish Things, Including The Fear Of Childishness And The Desire To Be Very Grown Up.

There Seems To Be Hardly Any One Among My Acquaintance From Whom I Have Not Learned.

In Silence And In Meditation On The Eternal Truths, I Hear The Voice Of God Which Excites Our Hearts To Greater Love.

A Christian Is Not A Man Who Never Goes Wrong, But A Man Who Is Enabled To Repent.

We Are Not Necessarily Doubting That God Will Do The Best For Us; We Are Wondering How Painful The Best Will Turn Out To Be.

This Is Our Dilemma--either To Taste And Not To Know Or To Know And Not To Taste--or, More Strictly, To Lack One Kind Of Knowledge Because We Are In An Experience Or To Lack Another Kind Because We Are Outside It. [. . .] Of This Tragic Dilemma Myth Is The Partial Solution. In The Enjoyment Of A Great Myth We Come Nearest To Experiencing As A Concrete What Can Otherwise Be Understood Only As An Abstraction.

No Time For Better Words, No Time To Unsay Anything. -til We Have Faces

I Don't Pray So That I Can Change God. I Pray So That God Can Change Me.

If The Parents In Each Generation Always Or Often Knew What Really Goes On At Their Sons' Schools, The History Of Education Would Be Very Different.

Besides Being Complicated, Reality, In My Experience, Is Usually Odd. It Is Not Neat, Not Obvious, Not What You Expect.

If Ever They Remembered Their Life In This World It Was As One Remembers A Dream.

If You Are A Christian You Do Not Have To Believe That All The Other Religions Are Simply Wrong All Through. If You Are An Atheist You Do Have To Believe That The Main Point In All The Religions Of The Whole World Is Simply One Huge Mistake.

Oh, I Can See It Happening, Age After Age, And Growing Worse The More You Reveal Your Beauty: The Son Turning His Back On The Mother And The Bride On Her Groom, Stolen Away By This Everlasting Calling, Calling, Calling Of The Gods. Taken Where We Can't Follow. It Would Be Far Better For Us If You Were Foul And Ravening. We'd Rather You Drank Their Blood Than Stole Their Hearts. We'd Rather They Were Ours And Dead Than Yours And Made Immortal.

I Read In A Periodical The Other Day That The Fundamental Thing Is How We Think Of God. By God Himself, It Is Not! How God Thinks Of Us Is Not Only More Important, But Infinitely More Important.

It Takes Courage To Live Through Suffering; And It Takes Honesty To Observe It.

There Is One Vice Of Which No Man In The World Is Free; Which Every One In The World Loathes When He Sees It In Someone Else; And Of Which Hardly Any People, Except Christians, Ever Imagine That They Are Guilty Themselves. […] There Is No Fault Which Makes A Man More Unpopular, And No Fault Which We Are More Unconscious Of In Ourselves.[…]the Vice I Am Talking Of Is Pride Or Self-conceit: And The Virtue Opposite To It, In Christian Morals, Is Called Humility.

We Are Born Helpless. As Soon As We Are Fully Conscious We Discover Loneliness.

More Like The Real Thing,' Said The Lord Digory Softly. - The Last Battle

God Loves Us Not Because We're Lovable, Because He Is Love. Not Because He Needs To Receive, Because He Delights To Give.

He Came To This World And Became A Man In Order To Spread To Other Men The Kind Of Life He Has - By What I Call 'good Infection'. Every Christian Is To Become A Little Christ. The Whole Purpose Of Becoming A Christian Is Simply Nothing Else.

It Is Better To Forget About Yourself Altogether.

The Next Best Thing To Being Wise Oneself Is To Live In A Circle Of Those Who Are.

Write About What Really Interests You, Whether It Is Real Things Or Imaginary Things, And Nothing Else.

We Don't Have A Soul. We Are A Soul. We Happen To Have A Body.

Afflictions Are... If We Can So Take Them, Our Share In The Passion Of Christ

Now Sir, Said The Bulldog In His Business-like Way. 'are You A Animal, Vegetable, Or Mineral?' - The Magician's Nephew

Man Does Not Have A Soul. He Is A Soul. He Has A Body.

The Continual Looking Forward To The Eternal World Is Not A Form Of Escapism Or Wishful Thinking, But One Of The Things A Christian Is Meant To Do.

It Is A Serious Thing To Live In A Society Of Possible Gods And Goddesses. To Remember That The Dullest, And Most Uninteresting Person You Can Talk To May One Day Be A Creature Which, If You Saw It Now, You Would Be Strongly Tempted To Worship.

This Is One Of The Miracles Of Love: It Gives A Power Of Seeing Through Its Own Enchantments And Yet Not Being Disenchanted.

Friendship Is The Greatest Of Worldly Goods. Certainly To Me It Is The Chief Happiness Of Life.

Oh God, God, Why Did You Take Such Trouble To Force This Creature Out Of Its Shell If It Is Now Doomed To Crawl Back -- To Be Sucked Back -- Into It?

Devils Are Depicted With Bats' Wings And Good Angels With Birds' Wings, Not Because Anyone Holds That Moral Deterioration Would Be Likely To Turn Feathers Into Membrane, But Because Most Men Like Birds Better Than Bats.

Surely You Know That If A Man Can't Be Cured Of Churchgoing, The Next Best Thing Is To Send Him All Over The Neighbourhood Looking For The Church That "suits" Him Until He Becomes A Taster Or Connoisseur Of Churches.

We Shall Not Be Well So Long As We Love And Admire Anything More Than We Love And Admire God.

Telling Us To Obey Instinct Is Like Telling Us To Obey 'people.' People Say Different Things: So Do Instincts. Our Instincts Are At War... Each Instinct, If You Listen To It, Will Claim To Be Gratified At The Expense Of The Rest.

Chastity Is The Most Unpopular Of The Christian Virtues.

Fancy Sleeping On Air. I Wonder If Anyone's Done It Before. I Don't Suppose They Have. Oh, Bother—-scrubb Probably Has!

Really, A Young Atheist Cannot Guard His Faith Too Carefully. Dangers Lie In Wait For Him On Every Side. You Must Not Do, You Must Not Even Try To Do, The Will Of The Father Unless You Are Prepared To "know Of The Doctrine." All My Acts, Desires, And Thoughts Were To Be Brought Into Harmony With Universal Spirit. For The First Time I Examined Myself With A Seriously Practical Purpose. And There I Found What Appalled Me; A Zoo Of Lusts, A Bedlam Of Ambitions, A Nursery Of Fears, A Harem Of Fondled Hatreds. My Name Was Legion.

True Humility Is More Like Self-forgetfulness Than False Modesty.

The First Demand Any Work Of Art Makes Upon Us Is To Surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get Yourself Out Of The Way.

I Sometimes Think That Shame, Mere Awkward, Senseless Shame, Does As Much Towards Preventing Good Acts And Straightforward Happiness As Any Of Our Vices Can Do.

I Expect You Have Seen Someone Put A A Lighted Match To A Bit Of Newspaper Which Is Propped Up In A Grate Against An Unlit Fire. And For A Second Nothing Seems To Have Happened; And Then You Notice A Tiny Steak Of Flame Creeping Along The Edged Of The Newspaper. It Was Like That Now.

You Cannot Make Men Good By Law.

Eros Will Have Naked Bodies; Friendship Naked Personalities.

You Cannot Love A Fellow Creature Fully Till You Love God.

As Long As This Deliberate Refusal To Understand Things From Above, Even Where Such Understanding Is Possible, Continues, It Is Idle To Talk Of Any Final Victory Over Materialism.

Crying Is All Right In Its Way While It Lasts. But You Have To Stop Sooner Or Later, And Then You Still Have To Decide What To Do.

And A Charge Of Lying Against Someone Whom You Have Always Found Truthful Is A Very Serious Thing; A Very Serious Thing Indeed.

I Have Been Trying To Make The Reader Believe That We Actually Are, At Present, Creatures Whose Character Must Be, In Some Respects, A Horror To God, As It Is, When We Really See It, A Horror To Ourselves. This I Believe To Be A Fact: And I Notice That The Holier A Man Is, The More Fully He Is Aware Of That Fact.

We Have Lost The Invaluable Faculty Of Being Shocked A Faculty Which Has Hitherto Almost Distinguished The Man Or Woman From The Beast Or Child.

The Typical Expression Of Opening Friendship Would Be Something Like, 'what? You Too? I Thought I Was The Only One!

The First Fact In The History Of Christendom Is A Number Of People Who Say They Have Seen The Resurrection.

The Whole Journey Was Odd And Dream-like -- The Roaring Stream, The Wet Grey Grass, The Glimmering Cliffs Which They Were Approaching, And Always The Glorious, Silently Pacing Beast Ahead.

The Value Of Myth Is That It Takes All The Things You Know And Restores To Them The Rich Significance Which Has Been Hidden By The Veil Of Familiarity.

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.

The Task Of The Modern Educator Is Not To Cut Down Jungles, But To Irrigate Deserts.

The Man Can Neither Man, Nor Retain, One Moment Of Time; It All Comes To Him By Pure Gift; He Might As Well Regard The Sun And Moon As His Chattels.

Prayer Is Either A Sheer Illusion Or A Personal Contact Between Embryonic, Incomplete Persons (ourselves) And The Utterly Concrete Person.

Heaven, Once Attained, Will Work Backwards And Turn Even Agony Into A Glory

I Find That When I Think I Am Asking God To Forgive Me I Am Often In Reality. . . Asking Him Not To Forgive Me But To Excuse Me.

He Told People That Their Sins Were Forgiven, And Never Waited To Consult All The Other People Whom Their Sins Had Undoubtedly Injured. He Unhesitatingly Behaved As If He Was The Party Chiefly Concerned, The Person Chiefly Offended In All Offenses. This Makes Sense Only If He Really Was God Whose Laws Are Broken And Whose Love Is Wounded In Every Sin.

The Happiness Which God Designs For His Higher Creatures Is The Happiness Of Being Freely, Voluntarily United To Him.

Prosperity Knits A Man To The World. He Feels That He Is Finding His Place In It, While Really It Is Finding Its Place In Him.

Only A Bad Person Needs To Repent: Only A Good Person Can Repent Perfectly.

Once In Those Very Early Days My Brother Brought Into The Nursery The Lid Of A Biscuit Tin Which He Had Covered With Moss And Garnished With Twigs And Flowers So As To Make It A Toy Garden Or A Toy Forest. That Was The First Beauty I Ever Knew. What The Real Garden Had Failed To Do, The Toy Garden Did. It Made Me Aware Of Nature-not, Indeed, As A Storehouse Of Forms And Colors But As Something Cool, Dewy, Fresh, Exuberant....as Long As I Live My Imagination Of Paradise Will Retain Something Of My Brother's Toy Garden.

If Things Are Real, They're There All The Time.

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

Lion Witch Wardrobe

Though No One Would Want To Be Sold As A Slave, It Is Perhaps Even More Galling To Be A Sort Of Utility Slave Whom No One Will Buy.

If Conversion To Christianity Makes No Improvement In A Man's Outward Actions – If He Continues To Be Just A Snobbish Or Spiteful Or Envious Or Ambitious As He Was Before – Then I Think We Must Suspect That His 'conversion' Was Largely Imaginary.

God Will Look To Every Soul Like Its First Love Because He Is Its First Love.

The Church Exists For Nothing Else But To Draw Men Into Christ.

Good People Know About Both Good And Evil: Bad People Do Not Know About Either.

Heaven Will Display Far More Variety Than Hell.

The Divine Nature Wounds And Perhaps Destroys Us Merely By Being What It Is.

The Calormens Have Dark Faces And Long Beards. They Wear Flowing Robes And Orange-colored Turbans, And They Are A Wise, Wealthy, Courteous, Cruel And Ancient People. They Bowed Most Politely To Caspian And Paid Him Long Compliments All About The Fountains Of Prosperity Irrigating The Gardens Of Prudence And Virtue --and Things Like That-- But Of Course What They Wanted Was The Money They Had Paid.

It Seems To Me That We Often, Almost Sulkily, Reject The Good That God Offers Us Because, At That Moment, We Expected Some Other Good.

Nothing In Man Is Either Worse Or Better For Being Shared With The Beasts.

And That's Why, When They Want To Get Rid Of Anyone, They Usually Bring Him Down Here (like They Were Doing With Me) And Say They'll Leave Him To The Ghosts. But I Always Wondered If They Didn't Really Drown 'em Or Cut Their Throats. I Never Quite Believed In The Ghosts. But Those Two Cowards You've Just Shot Believed All Right. They Were More Scared Of Taking Me To My Death Than I Was Of Going.

It Is Only When You Are Asked To Believe In Reason Coming From Non-reason That You Must Cry Halt. Human Minds. They Do Not Come From Nowhere.

The Great Thing With Unhappy Times Is To Take Them Bit By Bit, Hour By Hour, Like An Illness. It Is Seldom The Present, The Exact Present, That Is Unbearable.

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.

He (the Devil) Always Sends Errors Into The World In Pairs--pairs Of Opposites...he Relies On Your Extra Dislike Of One To Draw You Gradually Into The Opposite One. But Do Not Let Us Be Fooled. We Have To Keep Our Eyes On The Goal And Go Straight Through Between Both Errors. We Have No Other Concern Than That With Either Of Them.

A Noble Hunger, Long Unsatisfied, Met At Last Its Proper Food.

Where I Come From, They Don't Think Much Of Men Who Are Bossed About By Their Wives.

Love, Having Become A God, Becomes A Demon.

A Sick Society Must Think Much About Politics, As A Sick Man Must Think Much About His Digestion.

To Move With The Times Is, Of Course, To Go Where All Times Go.

Oh, Lor!' Said The Boy, Sitting Down On The Grassy Bank At The Edge Of The Shrubbery And Very Quickly Getting Up Again Because The Grass Was Soaking Wet. His Name Was Unfortunately Eustace Scrubb But He Wasn't A Bad Sort.

Better To Be Miserable With Her Than Happy Without Her. Let Our Hearts Break Provided They Break Together. If The Voice Within Us Does Not Say This It Is Not The Voice Of Eros.

All Get What They Want; They Do Not Always Like It.

You Must Make Your Choice: Either This Man Was, And Is, The Son Of God, Or Else A Madman Or Something Worse. You Can Shut Him Up For A Fool, You Can Spit At Him And Kill Him As A Demon; Or You Can Fall At His Feet And Call Him Lord And God. But Let Us Not Come With Any Patronizing Nonsense About His Being A Great Human Teacher. He Has Not Left That Open To Us. He Did Not Intend To.

Total War Is The Most Humane In The Long Run.

Christianity, If False, Is Of No Importance, And If True, Of Infinite Importance. The Only Thing It Cannot Be Is Moderately Important.

If We Let Ourselves, We Shall Always Be Waiting For Some Distraction Or Other To End Before We Can Really Get Down To Our Work. The Only People Who Achieve Much Are Those Who Want Knowledge So Badly That They Seek It While The Conditions Are Still Unfavorable. Favorable Conditions Never Come.

The Modern Habit Of Doing Ceremonial Things Unceremoniously Is No Proof Of Humility; Rather It Proves The Offender's Inability To Forget Himself In The Rite, And His Readiness To Spoil For Every One Else The Proper Pleasure Of Ritual.

The True Christian's Nostril Is To Be Continually Attentive To The Inner Cesspool.

Most Of Us Know What We Should Expect To Find In A Dragon's Lair, But, As I Said Before, Eustace Had Read Only The Wrong Books. They Had A Lot To Say About Exports And Imports And Governments And Drains, But They Were Weak On Dragons.

Into The Void Of Silence, Into The Empty Space Of Nothing, The Joy Of Life Is Unfurled.

Scripture Itself Is Not Systematic; The New Testament Shows The Greatest Variety. God Has Shown Us That He Can Use Any Instrument. Balaam's Ass, You Remember, Preached A Very Effective Sermon In The Midst Of His 'hee-haws.'

One Is Given Strength To Bear What Happens To One, But Not The 100 And 1 Different Things That Might Happen.

Atheism Turns Out To Be Too Simple. If The Whole Universe Has No Meaning, We Should Never Have Found Out That It Has No Meaning.

I Do Not Think That All Who Choose Wrong Roads Perish; But Their Rescue Consists In Being Put Back On The Right Road. A Sum Can Be Put Right: But Only By Going Back Til You Find The Error And Working It Afresh From That Point, Never By Simply Going On. Evil Can Be Undone, But It Cannot 'develop' Into Good. Time Does Not Heal It. The Spell Must Be Unwound, Bit By Bit, 'with Backward Mutters Of Dissevering Power' --or Else Not.

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.' Made For Us? Thank God, No. They Are Themselves, Odder Than You Could Have Believed And Worth Far More Than We Guessed.

The Man Is A Humbug — A Vulgar, Shallow, Self-satisfied Mind, Absolutely Inaccessible To The Complexities And Delicacies Of The Real World. He Has The Journalist's Air Of Being A Specialist In Everything, Of Taking In All Points Of View And Being Always On The Side Of The Angels: He Merely Annoys A Reader Who Has The Least Experience Of Knowing Things, Of What Knowing Is Like. There Is Not Two Pence Worth Of Real Thought Or Real Nobility In Him. But He Isn't Dull.

If God Is Love, He Is, By Definition, Something More Than Mere Kindness.

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.

Man's Conquest Of Nature Turns Out, In The Moment Of Its Consummation, To Be Nature's Conquest Of Man.

Is It Easy To Love God' Asks An Old Author. 'it Is Easy,' He Replies, 'to Those Who Do It.' I Have Included Two Graces Under The Word Charity. But God Can Give A Third. He Can Awake In Man, Towards Himself, A Supernatural Appreciative Love. This Is Of All Gifts The Most To Be Desired. Here, Not In Our Natural Loves, Nor Even In Ethics, Lies The True Centre Of All Human And Angelic Life. With This All Things Are Possible.

We Must Get Over Wanting To Be Needed.

But How Can The Characters In A Play Guess The Plot? We Are Not The Playwright, We Are Not The Producer, We Are Not Even The Audience. We Are On The Stage. To Play Well The Scenes In Which We Are "on" Concerns Us Much More Than To Guess About The Scenes That Follow It.

But One Of The Worst Results Of Being A Slave And Being Forced To Do Things Is That When There Is No One To Force You Any More You Find You Have Almost Lost The Power Of Forcing Yourself.

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