But Why,... If You Have A Serious Comment To Make On The Real Life Of Men, Must You Do It By Talking About A Phantasmagoric Never-never Land Of Your Own? Because, I Take It, One Of The Main Things The Author Wants To Say Is That The Real Life Of Men Is Of That Mythical And Heroic Quality.

-C. S. Lewis

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But Why,... If You

C. S. Lewis

Topic

Real

Men

Talking

More From C. S. Lewis

The Very Power Of [textbook Writers] Depends On The Fact That They Are Dealing With A Boy: A Boy Who Thinks He Is ‘doing’ His ‘english Prep’ And Has No Notion That Ethics, Theology, And Politics Are All At Stake. It Is Not A Theory They Put Into His Mind, But An Assumption, Which Ten Years Hence, Its Origin Forgotten And Its Presence Unconscious, Will Condition Him To Take One Side In A Controversy Which He Has Never Recognized As A Controversy At All.

Boys

Thinking

Years

I Don't Want To Hold You Hand!

Hands

Want

Hell Begins With A Grumbling Mood, Always Complaining, Always Blaming Others.

Grumbling

Complaining

Blame

I Never Heard Weeping Like That Before Or After; Not From A Child, Nor A Man Wounded In The Palm, Nor A Tortured Man, Nor A Girl Dragged Off To Slavery From A Taken City. If You Heard The Woman You Most Hate In The World Weep So, You Would Go To Comfort Her. You Would Fight Your Way Through Fire And Spears To Reach Her. And I Knew Who Wept, And What Had Been Done To Her, And Who Had Done It.

Girl

Children

Hate

God Is No Fonder Of Intellectual Slackers Than He Is Of Any Other Slacker.

Intellectual

Religion

Slacker

They Stormed And Jeered At One Another In Long Meaningless Words Of About Twenty Syllables Each.

Long

Twenties

Syllables

In Worship, God Imparts Himself To Us.

Prayer

Worship

Worship God

We Must Stop Regarding Unpleasant Or Unexpected Things As Interruptions Of Real Life. The Truth Is That Interruptions Are Real Life.

Real

Unexpected

Truth Is

We All Appear As Dunces When Feigning An Interest In Things We Care Nothing About.

Care

Dunces

Interest

On Many Questions And Specially In View Of The Marriage Bed, The Puritans Were The Indulgent Party, . . . They Were Much More Chestertonian Than Their Adversaries. The Idea That A Puritan Was A Repressed And Repressive Person Would Have Astonished Sir Thomas More And Luther About Equally.

Party

Views

Ideas

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

Wisdom

Different

Gaps

Watchin' And Listenin' Is The Thing At Present; Not Talking.

Talking

Not Talking

When You Go To Church You Are Really Listening-in To The Secret Wireless From Out Friends: That Is Why The Enemy Is So Anxious To Prevent Us From Going. He Does It By Playing On Our Conceit And Laziness And Intellectual Snobbery.

Intellectual

Secret

Listening

The Scotch Catechism Says That Man's Chief End Is 'to Glorify God And Enjoy Him Forever.' But We Shall Then Know That These Are The Same Thing. Fully To Enjoy Is To Glorify. In Commanding Us To Glorify Him, God Is Inviting Us To Enjoy Him.

Men

Scotch

Forever

The Change Which The Writing Wrought In Me (and Of Which I Did Not Write) Was Only A Beginning; Only To Prepare Me For The Gods' Surgery. They Used My Own Pen To Probe My Wound.

Writing

Used

Surgery

Critics Who Treat Adult As A Term Of Approval, Instead Of As A Merely Descriptive Term, Cannot Be Adult Themselves.

Adults

Approval

Treats

In Any Fairly Large And Talkative Community Such As A University There Is Always The Danger That Those Who Think Alike Should Gravitate Together Where They Will Henceforth Encounter Opposition Only In The Emasculated Form Of Rumour That The Outsiders Say Thus And Thus. The Absent Are Easily Refuted, Complacent Dogmatism Thrives, And Differences Of Opinion Are Embittered By The Group Hostility. Each Group Hears Not The Best, But The Worst, That The Other Group Can Say.

Wisdom

Thinking

Differences

But What Would Have Been The Good?" Aslan Said Nothing. "you Mean," Said Lucy Rather Faintly, "that It Would Have Turned Out All Right – Somehow? But How? Please, Aslan! Am I Not To Know?" "to Know What Would Have Happened, Child?" Said Aslan. "no. Nobody Is Ever Told That." "oh Dear," Said Lucy. "but Anyone Can Find Out What Will Happen," Said Aslan. "if You Go Back To The Others Now, And Wake Them Up; And Tell Them You Have Seen Me Again; And That You Must All Get Up At Once And Follow Me – What Will Happen? There Is Only One Way Of Finding Out.

Children

Mean

Way

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

Meaningful

Future

Past

'useful,' And 'necessity' Was Always 'the Tyrant's Plea'.

Freedom

Tyrants

Liberty

The More Imagination The Reader Has ... The More He Will Do For Himself. He Will, At A Mere Hint From The Author, Flood Wretched Material With Suggestion And Never Guess That He Is Himself Chiefly Making What He Enjoys.

For The Past Twenty Years You And I Have Been Fed All Day Long On Good Solid Lies About Sex

Sex

Lying

Past

The Value Of The Old Testament May Be Dependant On What Seems Its Imperfection. It May Repel One Use In Order That We May Be Forced To Use It In Another Way-to Find The Word In It...to Re-live, While We Read, The Whole Jewish Experience Of God's Gradual And Graded Self-revelation, To Feel The Very Contentions Between The Word And The Human Material Through Which It Works.

Bible

Biblical

Self

We Have Not, In Fact, Proved That Science Excludes Miracles: We Have Only Proved That The Question Of Miracles, Like Innumerable Other Questions, Excludes Laboratory Treatment.

Miracle

Facts

Treatment

God Descends To Re-ascend. He Comes Down; Down From The Heights Of Absolute Being Into Time And Space, Down Into Humanity ... Down To The Very Roots And Sea-bed Of The Nature He Has Created. But He Goes Down To Come Up Again And Bring The Ruined World Up With Him.

Sea

Roots

Space

God Is The Food Our Spirits Were Designed To Feed On.

Spirit

When We Lose One Blessing, Another Is Often Most Unexpectedly Given In Its Place [if We Anticipate And Look For It, Rather Than Wallow In Our 'supposed Loss'. It Can Be Helpful To Think Of The Loss Of That Blessing As Simply Necessary To Make Way For Another Different Blessing].

Loss

Blessing

Thinking

God Cannot Give Us A Happiness And Peace Apart From Himself, Because It Is Not There. There Is No Such Thing.

Inspirational

Happiness

Religious

If We Only Have The Will To Walk, Then God Is Pleased With Our Stumbles.

Uplifting

Christian

Walks

Remember, He Is Not, Like You, A Pure Spirit. Never Having Been A Human (oh That Abominable Advantage Of The Enemy's) You Don't Realize How Enslaved They Are To The Pressure Of The Ordinary.

Enemy

Ordinary

Pressure

Spying On People By Magic Is The Same As Spying On Them In Any Other Way.

People

Magic

Way

The Proper Rewards Are Not Simply Tacked On To The Activity For Which They Are Given, But Are The Activity Itself In Consummation.

Rewards

Given

Activity

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

Giving

Needs

Delight

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

Real

Battle

Lasts

Submit To Death, Death Of Your Ambitions And Favorite Wishes Every Day And Death Of Your Whole Body In The End: Submit With Every Fiber Of Your Being, And You Will Find Eternal Life. Keep Back Nothing. Nothing That You Have Not Given Away Will Be Really Yours. Nothing In You That Has Not Died Will Ever Be Raised From The Dead. . . Look To Christ And You Will Find Him, And With Him Everything Else Thrown In.

Ambition

Wish

Looks

It May Well Be That By Trickery Of Priests Men Have Sometimes Taken A Mortal's Voice For A God's. But It Will Not Work The Other Way. No One Who Hears A God's Voice Takes It For A Man's.

Taken

Men

Voice

We Want, In Fact, Not So Much A Father In Heaven As A Grandfather In Heaven: A Senile Benevolence Who, As They Say, "liked To See Young People Enjoying Themselves" And Whose Plan For The Universe Was Simply That It Might Be Truly Said At The End Of Each Day, "a Good Time Was Had By All."

Attitude

Father

People

To What Will You Look For Help If You Will Not Look To That Which Is Stronger Than Yourself?

Religion

Stronger

Looks

Many Things, Such As Loving, Going To Sleep, Or Behaving Unaffectedly - Are Done Worst When We Try Hardest To Do Them.

Sleep

Insomnia

Trying

If We Discover A Desire Within Us That Nothing In This World Can Satisfy, Also We Should Begin To Wonder If Perhaps We Were Created For Another World.

Desire

Ministry

World

At The Very Least, They Can Be Persuaded That The Bodily Position Makes No Difference To Their Prayers; For They Constantly Forget[...]that They Are Animals And That Whatever Their Bodies Do Affects Their Souls.

Prayer

Animal

Differences

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

Soul

Body

Happens

Anyone Who Endeavors To Be A Christian Will Soon Find His Intelligence Being Sharpened. You Are Embarking On Something That Is Going To Take The Whole Of You, Brains And All.

Christian

Brain

Endeavor

Many Thousands Of People Have Had The Experience Of Finding The First Friend, And It Is None The Less A Wonder; As Great A Wonder (pace The Novelists) As First Love, Or Even Greater.

First Love

People

Novelists

Yes, I Know,' Interrupted Puddleglum. 'and Few Return To The Sunlit Lands. You Needn't Say It Again. You Are A Chap Of One Idea, Aren't You?

Land

Ideas

Return

I Am A Product Of Long Corridors, Empty Sunlit Rooms, Upstairs Indoor Silences, Attics Explored In Solitude, Distant Noises Of Gurgling Cisterns And Pipes, And The Noise Of Wind Under The Tiles. Also, Of Endless Books.

Book

Wind

Long

Agnostics Talk Cheerfully Of Man's Search For God But They Might As Well Talk About The Mouse's Search For The Cat.

Cat

Men

Might

But As For Lucy, She Was Always Gay And Golden-haired, And All Princes In Those Parts Desired Her To Be Their Queen, And Her Own People Called Her Queen Lucy The Valiant.

Queens

Gay

People

I Believe That Many Who Find That "nothing Happens" When They Sit Down, Or Kneel Down, To A Book Of Devotion, Would Find That The Heart Sings Unbidden While They Are Working Their Way Through A Tough Bit Of Theology With A Pipe In Their Teeth And A Pencil In Their Hand.

Believe

Book

Heart

I Pray Because I Can't Help Myself.

Helping

Praying

Because I Can

Obedience Is The Road To Freedom, Humility The Road To Pleasure, Unity The Road To Personality.

Humility

Personality

Unity

Repentance Is Not Something God Demands Of You Before He Will Take You Back And Which He Could Let You Off If He Chose; It Is Simply A Description Of What Going Back Is Like.

Demand

Repentance

Description

Autumn Is Really The Best Of The Seasons; And I'm Not Sure That Old Age Isn't The Best Part Of Life.

Autumn

Age

Aging

Lust Is A Poor, Weak, Whimpering, Whispering Thing Compared With That Richness And Energy Of Desire Which Will Arise When Lust Has Been Killed.

Inspirational

Religious

Lust

I Daren't Come And Drink," Said Jill. Then You Will Die Of Thirst," Said The Lion. Oh Dear!" Said Jill, Coming Another Step Nearer."i Suppose I Must Go And Look For Another Stream Then." There Is No Other Stream," Said The Lion.

Looks

Lions

Steps

Enemy-occupied Territory - That Is What This World Is.

Enemy

Territory

World

We Must Perpetually Try To Distinguish, However Closely They Get Entwined By The Subtle Nature Of The Facts And By The Secret Importunity Of Our Passions, Those Attitudes In A Writer Which We Can Honestly And Confidently Condemn As Real Evils, And Those Qualities In His Writing Which Simply Annoy And Offend Us As Men Of Taste.

Attitude

Real

Passion

A Children's Story That Can Only Be Enjoyed By Children Is Not A Good Children's Story In The Slightest.

Inspirational

Children

Powerful

What He Says, Even On His Knees, About His Own Sinfulness Is All Parrot Talk. At Bottom, He Still Believes He Has Run Up A Very Favorable Credit-balance In The Enemy's Ledger By Allowing Himself To Be Converted, And Thinks That He Is Showing Great Humility And Condescension In Going To Church With These 'smug', Commonplace Neighbors At All.

Running

Believe

Humility

By This Method Thousands Of Humans Have Been Brought To Think That Humility Means Pretty Women Trying To Believe They Are Ugly And Clever Men Trying To Believe They Are Fools. And Since What They Are Trying To Believe May, In Some Cases, Be Manifest Nonsense, They Cannot Succeed In Believing It And We Have The Chance Of Keeping Their Minds Endlessly Revolving On Themselves In An Effort To Achieve The The Impossible.

Clever

Believe

Mean

Enough Had Been Thought, And Said, And Felt, And Imagined. It Was About Time That Something Should Be Done.

Time

Done

Enough

A Pipe Gives A Wise Man Time To Think And A Fool Something To Stick In His Mouth.

Wise

Time

Men

Literature Adds To Reality, It Does Not Simply Describe It.

Reality

Doe

Add

Heaven Offers Nothing That A Mercenary Soul Can Desire.

Wisdom

Heaven

Soul

I Could Never Have Gone Far In Any Science Because On The Path Of Every Science The Lion Mathematics Lies In Wait For You.

Lying

Waiting

Gone

When Catholicism Goes Bad It Becomes The World-old, World-wide Religio Of Amulets And Holy Places And Priestcraft. Protestantism,in Its Corresponding Decay, Becomes A Vague Mist Of Ethical Platitudes. Catholicism Is Accused Of Being Too Much Like All The Other Religions; Protestantism Of Being Insufficiently Like A Religion At All. Hence Plato, With His Transcendent Forms, Is The Doctor Of Protestants; Aristotle, With His Immanent Forms, The Doctor Of Catholics.

Plato

Doctors

Catholic

God Has Infinite Attention, Infinite Leisure To Spare For Each One Of Us. He Doesn't Have To Take Us In The Line. You're As Much Alone With Him As If You Were The Only Thing He'd Ever Created.

Attention

Lines

Leisure

There Is No Use Saying You Chose To Lie Down When It Has Become Impossible To Stand Up.

Lying

Use

Impossible

The Glory Of God, And, As Our Only Means Of Glorifying Him, The Salvation Of Human Souls, Is The Real Business Of Life.

Real

Mean

Soul

Read And Re-read--"re-reading, We Always Find A New Book.

Book

Reading

New Books

It Is Wonderful What You Can Do When You Have To.

Wonderful

Can Do

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

Sweet

Long

Noble

Many People Think Their Prayers Are Never Answered Because It Is The Answered Ones They Forget.

Prayer

Thinking

People

Puddleglum's My Name. But It Doesn't Matter If You Forget It. I Can Always Tell You Again.

Names

Matter

Forget

These, Then, Are The Two Points I Wanted To Make. First, That Human Beings, All Over The Earth, Have This Curious Idea That They Ought To Behave In A Certain Way, And Cannot Really Get Rid Of It. Secondly, That They Do Not In Fact Behave In That Way. They Know The Law Of Nature; They Break It. These Two Facts Are The Foundation Of All Clear Thinking About Ourselves And The Universe We Live In.

Thinking

Law

Ideas

Our Passions Are Not Too Strong, They Are Too Weak. We Are Far Too Easily Pleased.

Wisdom

Strong

Passion

Even In Literature And Art, No Man Who Bothers About Originality Will Ever Be Original: Whereas If You Simply Try To Tell The Truth (without Caring Twopence How Often It Has Been Told Before) You Will, Nine Times Out Of Ten, Become Original Without Ever Having Noticed It.

Art

Truth

Creativity

Narnia! It's All In The Wardrobe Just Like I Told You!

Narnia

Lion Witch Wardrobe

Wardrobe

After Each Failure, Ask Forgiveness, Pick Yourself Up, And Try Again. Very Often What God First Helps Us Toward Is Not The Virtue Itself But Just This Power Of Always Trying Again. For However Important Chastity (or Courage, Or Truthfulness, Or Any Other Virtue) May Be, This Process Trains Us In Habits Of The Soul Which Are More Important Still. It Cures Our Illusions About Ourselves And Teaches Us To Depend On God. We Learn, On The One Hand, That We Cannot Trust Ourselves Even In Our Best Moments, And, On The Other, That We Need Not Despair Even In Our Worst, For Our Failures Are Forgiven.

Hands

Always Trying

Soul

I Have Come Home At Last! This Is My Real Country! I Belong Here. This Is The Land I Have Been Looking For All My Life, Though I Never Knew It Till Now... Come Further Up, Come Further In!

Country

Real

Home

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.

Reality

Perfect

Mind

The Rule Of The Universe Is That Others Can Do For Us What We Cannot Do For Ourselves, And One Can Paddle Every Canoe Except One's Own.

Life

Can Do

Universe

The Difference [god's] Timelessness Makes Is That This Now (which Slips Away From You Even As You Say The Word Now) Is For Him Infinite.

Differences

Infinite

Away From You

It Is That Of An Unsatisfied Desire Which Is Itself More Desirable Than Any Other Satisfaction.

Friendship

Desire

Satisfaction

I Gave Up Christianity At About 14. Came Back To It When Getting On For 30. Not An Emotional Conversion; Almost Purely Philosophical. I Didn't Want To. I'm Not In The Least A Religious Type. I Want To Be Let Alone, To Feel I'm My Own Master; But Since The Facts Seemed To Be Just The Opposite, I Had To Give In.

Religious

Philosophical

Emotional

Daughter Of Eve From The Far Land Of Spare Oom Where Eternal Summer Reigns Around The Bright City Of War Drobe, How Would It Be If You Came And Had Tea With Me?

Summer

Daughter

War

It Would Be Impossible To Accept Naturalism Itself If We Really And Consistently Believed Naturalism. For Naturalism Is A System Of Thought. But For Naturalism All Thoughts Are Mere Events With Irrational Causes. It Is, To Me At Any Rate, Impossible To Regard The Thoughts Which Make Up Naturalism In That Way And, At The Same Time, Regard Them As A Real Insight Into External Reality...if It Is True, Then We Can Know No Truths. It Cuts Its Own Throat.

Real

Cutting

Events

When We Want To Be Something Other Than The Thing God Wants Us To Be, We Must Be Wanting What, In Fact, Will Not Make Us Happy.

Want

Facts

Want U

To Every Soul, God Will Look Like Its First Love Because He Is Its First Love. Your Place In Heaven Will Seem To Be Made For You And You Alone, Because You Were Made For It - Made For It Stitch By Stitch As A Glove Is Made For A Hand.

Love You

First Love

Love Is

Love, Having Become A God, Becomes A Demon.

Demon

But However Happy You Are Feeling, You Can't Talk With Your Mouth Full Of Snow.

Snow

Feelings

Mouths

It May Be Hard For An Egg To Turn Into A Bird: It Would Be A Jolly Sight Harder For It To Learn To Fly While Remaining An Egg. We Are Like Eggs At Present. And You Cannot Go On Indefinitely Being Just An Ordinary, Decent Egg. We Must Be Hatched Or Go Bad.

Life

Change

Wisdom

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

Inspirational

Christian

World

Virtue - Even Attempted Virtue - Brings Light; Indulgence Brings Fog.

Christian

Light

Fog

When All The Suns And Nebulae Have Passed Away, Each One Of You Will Still Be Alive.

Alive

Sun

Passed Away

Creatures Are Not Born With Desires Unless Satisfaction For Those Desires Exists. A Baby Feels Hunger: Well, There Is Such A Thing As Food. A Duckling Wants To Swim: Well, There Is Such A Thing As Water...if I Find In Myself A Desire, Which No Experience In This World Can Satisfy, The Most Probable Explanation Is That I Was Made For Another World.

Baby

Water

Swim

Ah, You've Come Over The Water. Powerful Wet Stuff, Ain't It?

Powerful

Water

Stuff

You Die And Die And Then You Are Beyond Death.

Dies

I Have Learned Now That While Those Who Speak About One's Miseries Usually Hurt, Those Who Keep Silence Hurt More.

Love

Inspirational

Sad

I Think God Wants Us To Love Him More, Not To Love Others Less.

Thinking

Want

Want U

The Only Safe Rule Is To Give More Than We Can Spare. Our Charities Should Pinch And Hamper Us. If We Live At The Same Level Of Affluence As Other People Who Have Our Level Of Income, We Are Probably Giving Away Too Little.

People

Giving

Income

God Doesn't Want Something From Us. He Simply Wants Us.

Want Something

Ministry

Want

Most People, If They Had Really Learned To Look Into Their Own Hearts, Would Know That They Do Want, And Want Acutely, Something That Cannot Be Had In This World. There Are All Sorts Of Things In This World That Offer To Give It To You, But They Never Quite Keep Their Promise.

Heart

Giving

People

No One Ever Told Me That Grief Felt So Like Fear. I Am Not Afraid, But The Sensation Is Like Being Afraid. The Same Fluttering In The Stomach, The Same Restlessness, The Yawning. I Keep On Swallowing.

Wisdom

Grief

Yawning

Every Joy Is Beyond All Others.

Joy

Temperance Referred Not Abstaining, But Going The Right Length And No Further...of Course It May Be The Duty Of A Particular Christian, Or Any Christian, At A Particular Time, To Abstain From Strong Drink, Either Because He Is The Sort Of Man Who Cannot Drink At All Without Drinking Too Much, Or Because He Wants To Give The Money To The Poor, Or Because He Is With People Who Are Inclined To Drunkenness And Must Not Encourage Them By Drinking Himself. But The Whole Point He Is Abstaining, For A Good Reason, From Something He Does Not Condemn And Which He Likes To See Other People Enjoying.

Christian

Strong

Drinking

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

Deception

Nursery

Virtuous

Until The Theologians And The Ordained Clergy Begin To Communicate With Ordinary People In The Vernacular, In A Way That They Can Understand, I’m Going To Have To Do This Sort Of Thing.

People

Ordinary

Way

Those Who Do Not Think About Their Own Sins Make Up For It By Thinking Incessantly About The Sins Of Others.

Motivational

Thinking

Sin

The Greatest Evil Is Not Done In Those Sordid Dens Of Evil That Dickens Loved To Paint ... But Is Conceived And Ordered (moved, Seconded, Carried, And Minuted) In Clear, Carpeted, Warmed, Well-lighted Offices, By Quiet Men With White Collars And Cut Fingernails And Smooth-shaven Cheeks Who Do Not Need To Raise Their Voices.

Cutting

Men

Voice

It Is A Happy Moment When Our Desire Crosses With The Will Of Heavenly Father.

Father

Desire

Moments

Here The Whole World (stars, Water, Air, And Field, And Forest, As They Were Reflected In A Single Mind) Like Cast Off Clothes Was Left Behind In Ashes, Yet With Hopes That She, Re-born From Holy Poverty, In Lenten Lands, Hereafter May Resume Them On Her Easter Day." (epitaph For Joy Gresham)

Easter

Stars

Clothes

But Courage, Child: We Are All Between The Paws Of The True Aslan.

Children

Paws

Child, To Say The Very Thing You Really Mean, The Whole Of It, Nothing More Or Less Or Other Than What You Really Mean; That's The Whole Art And Joy Of Words.

Art

Children

Mean

Gratitude Looks To The Past And Love To The Present; Fear, Avarice, Lust, And Ambition Look Ahead.

Gratitude

Fear

Grateful

A Promise Must Be About Actions: No One Can Promise To Go On Feeling A Certain Way.

Feelings

Promise

Goes On

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.

Wisdom

War

People

To The Glistening Eastern Sea, I Give You Queen Lucy, The Valiant. To The Great Western Wood, King Edmund The Just. To The Radiant Southern Sun, Queen Susan, The Gentle; And To The Clear Northern Sky I Give You King Peter, The Magnificent. Once A King Or Queen Of Narnia, Always A King Or Queen. May Your Wisdom Grace Us 'til The Stars Rain Down From The Heavens.

Kings

Stars

Queens

There Is No Neutral Ground In The Universe. Every Square Inch, Every Split Second Is Claimed By God, And Counterclaimed By Satan.

Squares

Religion

Atheism

Of Course All Children's Literature Is Not Fantastic, So All Fantastic Books Need Not Be Children's Books. It Is Still Possible, Even In An Age So Ferociously Anti-romantic As Our Own, To Write Fantastic Stories For Adults: Though You Will Usually Need To Have Made A Name In Some More Fashionable Kind Of Literature Before Anyone Will Publish Them.

Children

Book

Writing

If God 'foresaw' Our Acts, It Would Be Very Hard To Understand How We Could Be Free Not To Do Them. But Suppose God Is Outside And Above The Time-line... You Never Supposed That Your Actions At This Moment Were Any Less Free Because God Knows What You Are Doing. Well, He Know Your Tomorrow's Actions In Just The Same Way--because He Is Already In Tomorrow And Can Simply Watch You. In A Sense, He Does Not Know Your Action Till You Have Done It: But The Moment At Which You Have Done It Is Already 'now' For Him.

Doe

Watches

Would Be

If God Had Granted All The Silly Prayers I've Made In My Life, Where Should I Be Now?

Inspirational

Prayer

Silly

I Believe In Christianity As I Believe That The Sun Has Risen: Not Only Because I See It, But Because By It I See Everything Else.

Faith

God

Christian

We Know We Are Sinners, It Does Not Follow That We Are Saved.

Doe

Knows

Saved

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".

Years

Littles

Bigger

When You Are Behaving As If You Loved Someone, You Will Presently Come To Love Him. If You Injure Someone You Dislike, You Will Find Yourself Disliking Him More. If You Do Him A Good Turn, You Will Find Yourself Disliking Him Less.

Finding Yourself

Turns

Ifs

What Draws People To Be Friends Is That They See The Same Truth. They Share It.

Inspirational

People

Religion

The Return From The Walk, And The Arrival Of Tea, Should Be Exactly Coincident, And Not Later Than A Quarter Past Four.

Past

Tea

Four

But Probably Every Age Gets, Within Certain Limits, The Science It Deserves.

Age

Limits

Certain

Aristotle Said That Some People Were Only Fit To Be Slaves. I Do Not Contradict Him. But I Reject Slavery Because I See No Men Fit To Be Masters.

Men

People

Slavery

You Would Not Call A Man Humane For Ceasing To Set Mousetraps If He Did So Because He Believed There Were No Mice In The House.

Wisdom

Men

House

I Became My Own Only When I Gave Myself To Another.

My Own

I Am A Product [...of] Endless Books. My Father Bought All The Books He Read And Never Got Rid Of Any Of Them.... I Had Always The Same Certainty Of Finding A Book That Was New To Me As A Man Who Walks Into A Field Has Of Finding A New Blade Of Grass.

Father

Book

Men

You Can Put This Another Way By Saying That While In Other Sciences The Instruments You Use Are Things External To Yourself (things Like Microscopes And Telescopes), The Instrument Through Which You See God Is Your Whole Self. And If A Man's Self Is Not Kept Clean And Bright, His Glimpse Of God Will Be Blurred - Like The Moon Seen Through A Dirty Telescope. That Is Why Horrible Nations Have Horrible Religions: They Have Been Looking At God Through A Dirty Lens.

Dirty

Moon

Men

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.

Christian

Effort

Acting

But All Night, Aslan And The Moon Gazed Upon Each Other With Joyful And Unblinking Eyes.

Eye

Moon

Night

For A Long Time I Used To Think This A Silly, Straw-splitting Distinction: How Could You Hate What A Man Did And Not Hate The Man? But Years Later It Occurred To Me That There Was One Man To Whom I Had Been Doing This All My Life - Namely Myself.

Hate

Silly

Men

Miracles Are For Beginners.

Miracle

Beginners

And There, Right In The Middle Of It, I Find 'forgive Us Our Sins As We Forgive Those That Sin Against Us.' There Is No Slightest Suggestion That We Are Offered Forgiveness On Any Other Terms. It Is Made Perfectly Clear That If We Do Not Forgive We Shall Not Be Forgiven.

Forgiving

Suggestions

Sin

I Am In Love And Out Of It I Will Not Go.

Marriage

I Hate You

Positive Marriage

Every Sin Is The Distortion Of An Energy Breathed Into Us.

Energy

Sin

Distortion

It Is In Their 'good' Characters That Novelists Make, Unawares, The Most Shocking Self- Revelations.

Wisdom

Character

Self

Man Is Not The Centre. God Does Not Exist For The Sake Of Man. Man Does Not Exist For His Own Sake.

Men

Doe

Sake

Badness Cannot Succeed Even In Being Bad In The Same Way In Which Goodness Is Good. Goodness Is, So To Speak, Itself: Badness Is Only Spoiled Goodness. Evil Is A Parasite, Not An Original Thing.

Evil

Catholic

Way

We Thought The Duke Would Have Been Pleased If The King's Majesty Would Have Married His Daughter, But Nothing Came Of That--' Squints, And Has Freckles,' Said Caspian. Oh, Poor Girl,' Said Lucy.

Girl

Daughter

Kings

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

Lying

Wind

Trying

The Absent Are Easily Refuted.

Wisdom

Absent

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

Men

Beast

Spiteful Words Can Hurt Your Feelings But Silence Breaks Your Heart.

Hurt

Heart

Silence

You've No Idea How Good An Old Joke Sounds When You Take It Out Again After A Rest Of Five Or Six Hundred Years.

Years

Ideas

Sound

I Have No Duty To Be Anyone's Friend And No Man In The World Has A Duty To Be Mine. No Claims, No Shadow Of Necessity. Friendship Is Unnecessary, Like Philosophy, Like Art, Like The Universe Itself (for God Did Not Need To Create). It Has No Survival Value; Rather It Is One Of Those Things Which Give Value To Survival.

Art

Philosophy

Men

Don't Let Your Happiness Depend On Something You May Lose.

Life

Happiness

Happy

We Were Talking Of Dragons, Tolkien And I In A Berkshire Bar. The Big Workman Who Had Sat Silent And Sucked His Pipe All The Evening, From His Empty Mug With Gleaming Eye Glanced Towards Us: "i Seen 'em Myself!" He Said Fiercely.

Eye

Dragons

Talking

You Can Begin As If Nothing Had Ever Gone Wrong. White As Snow.

White

Snow

Gone

It Has Actually Become Very Necessary In Our Time To Rebut The Theory That Every Firm And Serious Friendship Is Really Homosexual.

Serious

Theory

Homosexual

Grief Is Like A Bomber Circling Round And Dropping Its Bombs Each Time The Circle Brings It Overhead; Physical Pain Is Like The Steady Barrage On A Trench In World War One, Hours If It With No Let-up For A Moment. Thought Is Never Static Pain Often Is... Is It Not Yet Enough?

Pain

War

Grief

But Length Of Days With An Evil Heart Is Only Length Of Misery And Already She Begins To Know It. All Get What They Want; They Do Not Always Like It.

Heart

Evil

Want

Ambition! We Must Be Careful What We Mean By It. If It Means The Desire To Get Ahead Of Other People - Which Is What I Think It Does Mean - Then It Is Bad. If It Means Simply Wanting To Do A Thing Well, Then It Is Good. It Isn't Wrong For An Actor To Want To Act His Part As Well As It Can Possibly Be Acted, But The Wish To Have His Name In Bigger Type Than The Other Actors Is A Bad One.

Ambition

Mean

Thinking

The Stamp Of The Saint Is That He Can Waive His Own Rights And Obey The Lord Jesus.

Jesus

Rights

Religion

The Most Precious Gift That Marriage Gave Me Was The Constant Impact Of Something Very Close And Intimate, Yet All The Time Unmistakably Other, Resistant - In A Word, Real.

Marriage

Real

Impact

There Have Been Men Before Now Who Got So Interested In Proving The Existence Of God That They Came To Care Nothing For God Himself.

God

Men

Care

Friends Are Like Coals In A Fire - Together, They Glow; Apart, They Grow Cold.

Fire

Together

Coal

Omnipotence Means Power To Do All That Is Intrinsically Possible, Not To Do The Intrinsically Impossible. You May Attribute Miracles To Him, But Not Nonsense.

Mean

Omnipotence

Miracle

Do Not Dare Not To Dare.

Life

Religion

Dare

In Justifying Cruelty To Animals We Put Ourselves Also On The Animal Level. We Choose The Jungle And Must Abide By Our Choice.

Animal

Choices

Pet

The Guide Sang: The New Age, The New Art, The New Ethic And Thought, And Fools Crying, Because It Has Begun It Will Continue As It Has Begun! The Wheel Runs Fast, Therefore The Wheel Will Run Faster For Ever, The Old Age Is Done, We Have New Lights And See Without The Sun. (though They Lay Flat The Mountains And Dry Up The Sea, Wilt Thou Yet Change, As Though God Were A God?)

Running

Art

Light

How Difficult It Is To Avoid Having A Special Standard For Oneself.

Christian

Hypocrite

Special

He Wants Them To Learn To Walk And Must Therefore Take Away His Hand.

Hands

Want

Screwtape Letters

Have You Not Seen That In Our Days Of Any Whose Story, Song Or Art Delights Us, Our Sincerest Praise Means, When All's Said, 'you Break My Heart?

Song

Art

Mean

Remember He Is The Artist And You Are Only The Picture. You Can't See It. So Quietly Submit To Be Painted---i.e., Keep Fulfilling All The Obvious Duties Of Your Station (you Really Know Quite Well Enough What They Are!), Asking Forgiveness For Each Failure And Then Leaving It Alone.you Are In The Right Way. Walk---don't Keep On Looking At It.

Trust

Artist

Leaving

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

Desire

May

Dangerous

He Who Has Not Forgiven An Enemy Has Never Yet Tasted One Of The Most Sublime Enjoyments Of Life.

Life

Forgiveness

Sublime

There Is No Use In Talking As If Forgiveness Were Easy. For We Find That The Work Of Forgiveness Has To Be Done Over And Over Again.

Talking

Use

Done

In Each Of My Friends There Is Something That Only Some Other Friend Can Fully Bring Out. By Myself I Am Not Large Enough To Call The Whole Man Into Activity; I Want Other Lights Than My Own To Show All His Facets... Hence True Friendship Is The Least Jealous Of Loves. Two Friends Delight To Be Joined By A Third, And Three By A Fourth, If Only The Newcomer Is Qualified To Become A Real Friend. They Can Then Say, As The Blessed Souls Say In Dante, "here Comes One Who Will Augment Our Loves." For In This Love "to Divide Is Not To Take Away.

Real

Blessed

Jealous

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.

Men

Thinking

Ambitious

It Is Very True. But Even A Traitor May Mend. I Have Known One That Did.

May

Traitor

Very True

Giving To The Poor Is An Essential Part Of Christian Morality.

Christian

Giving

Essentials

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

Men

Thinking

Sick

The Modern State Exists Not To Protect Our Rights But To Do Us Good Or Make Us Good - Anyway, To Do Something To Us Or To Make Us Something. Hence The New Name 'leaders' For Those Who Were Once 'rulers'. We Are Less Their Subjects Than Their Wards, Pupils, Or Domestic Animals. There Is Nothing Left Of Which We Can Say To Them, 'mind Your Own Business.' Our Whole Lives Are Their Business.

Animal

Rights

Names

That Fierce Imprisonment In The Self Is But The Obverse Of The Self-giving Which Is Absolute Reality.

Reality

Self

Giving

Dance And Game Are Frivolous, Unimportant Down Here; For "down Here" Is Not Their Natural Place. Here, They Are A Moment's Rest From The Life We Were Placed Here To Live. But In This World Everything Is Upside Down. That Which, If It Could Be Prolonged Here, Would Be A Truancy, Is Likest That Which In A Better Country Is The End Of Ends. Joy Is The Serious Business Of Heaven.

Country

Games

Joy

The Holier A Man Becomes, The More He Mourns Over The Unholiness Which Remains In Him.

Men

Holiness

Mourn

If God Thinks This State Of War In The Universe A Price Worth Paying For Free Will...then We May Take It It Is Worth Paying.

War

Thinking

May

Education Is Only The Most Fully Conscious Of The Channels Whereby Each Generation Influences The Next.

Generations

Influence

All Shall Be Done, But It May Be Harder Than You Think.

Thinking

Done

May

If And When A Horror Turns Up You Will Then Be Given Grace To Help You. I Don't Think One Is Usually Given It In Advance. "give Us Our Daily Bread" (not An Annuity For Life) Applies To Spiritual Gifts Too; The Little Daily Support For The Daily Trial. Life Has To Be Taken Day By Day And Hour By Hour.

Spiritual

Taken

Thinking

Man Must Endure His Going Hence.

Tombstone

Men

Endure

God Knows Our Situation; He Will Not Judge Us As If We Had No Difficulties To Overcome. What Matters Is The Sincerity And Perseverance Of Our Will To Overcome Them.

Perseverance

Hard Times

What Matters

When You And I Met, The Meeting Was Over Very Shortly, It Was Nothing. Now It Is Growing Something As We Remember It, What Will It Be When I Remember It As I Lie Down To Die, What It Makes In Me All My Days Till Then - That Is The Real Meeting. The Other Is Only The Beginning Of It. You Say You Have Poets In Your World. Do They Not Teach You This?

Real

Lying

World

Only Those Who Try To Resist Temptation Know How Strong It Is. ... We Never Find Out The Strength Of The Evil Impulse Inside Us Until We Try To Fight It: And Christ, Because He Was The Only Man Who Never Yielded To Temptation, Is Also The Only Man Who Knows To The Full What Temptation Means—the Only Complete Realist.

Strong

Mean

Fighting

Human Beings Judge One Another By Their External Actions. God Judges Them By Their Moral Choices.

Judging

Choices

Action

There Are No Ordinary People. You Have Never Talked To A Mere Mortal. Nations, Cultures, Arts, Civilizations - These Are Mortal, And Their Life Is To Ours As The Life Of A Gnat. But It Is Immortals Whom We Joke With, Work With, Marry, Snub And Exploit - Immortal Horrors Or Everlasting Splendors. This Does Not Mean That We Are To Be Perpetually Solemn. We Must Play. But Our Merriment Must Be Of That Kind (and It Is, In Fact, The Merriest Kind) Which Exists Between People Who Have, From The Outset, Taken Each Other Seriously - No Flippancy, No Superiority, No Presumption.

Art

Taken

Mean

The 'frankness' Of People Sunk Below Shame Is A Very Cheap Frankness.

People

Shame

Frankness

Awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be Walking Trees. Be Talking Beasts. Be Divine Waters.

Thinking

Talking

Water

We Hear A Great Deal About The Rudeness Of The Rising Generation. I Am An Oldster Myself And Might Be Expected To Take The Oldsters' Side, But In Fact I Have Been Far More Impressed By The Bad Manners Of Parents To Children Than By Those Of Children To Parents.

Children

Parent

Generations

Thirst Was Made For Water; Inquiry For Truth. What You Now Call The Free Play Of Inquiry Has Neither More Nor Less To Do With The Ends For Which Intelligence Was Given You Than Masturbation Has To Do With Marriage.

Play

Water

Inquiry

Once You Become Aware That The Main Business That You Are Here For Is To Know God, Most Of Life's Problems Fall Into Place Of Their Own Accord. J.i. Packer Aim At Heaven And You Will Get Earth Thrown In. Aim At Earth And You Will Get Neither.

Fall

Heaven

Earth

The Man In Christ Rose Again, Not Only The God.

Men

Rose

Resurrection

Other Than Heaven, The Only Place Where One's Heart Is Completely Safe From The Dangers Of Love Is Hell.

Wisdom

Heart

Love Is

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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