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He Cannot "tempt" To Virtue As We Do To Vice. He Wants Them To Learn To Walk And Must Therefore Take Away His Hand; And If Only The Will To Walk Is Really There He Is Pleased Even With Their Stumbles.

-C. S. Lewis

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He Cannot "tempt" To

C. S. Lewis

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He Cannot "tempt" To Virtue As We Do To Vice. He Wants Them To Learn To Walk And Must Therefore Take Away His Hand; And If Only The Will To Walk Is Really There He Is Pleased Even With Their Stumbles.

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Reasoning Is Never, Like Poetry, Judged From The Outside At All.

I Have Been Suspected Of Being What Is Called A Fundamentalist. That Is Because I Never Regard Any Narrative As Unhistorical Simply On The Ground That It Includes The Miraculous.

Actually It Seems To Me That One Can Hardly Say Anything Either Bad Enough Or Good Enough About Life.

Relying On God Has To Begin All Over Again Every Day As If Nothing Had Yet Been Done.

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

The Christian Has A Great Advantage Over Other Men, Not By Being Less Fallen Than They, Nor Less Doomed To Live In A Fallen World, But By Knowing That He Is A Fallen Man In A Fallen World.

That Will Not Be The Time For Choosing: It Will Be The Time When We Discover Which Side We Really Have Chosen, Whether We Realized It Before Or Not. Now, Today, This Moment, Is Out Chance To Chose The Right Side. God Is Holding Back To Give Us That Chance. It Will Not Last Forever. We Must Take It Or Leave It.

Chastity Is The Most Unpopular Of The Christian Virtues. There Is No Getting Away From It; The Old Christian Rule Is, "either Marriage, With Completely Faithfulness To Your Partner, Or Else Total Abstinence."

Miracles Do Not, In Fact, Break The Laws Of Nature.

Not My Idea Of God, But God. Not My Idea Of H., But H. Yes, And Also Not My Idea Of My Neighbour, But My Neighbour. For Don't We Often Make This Mistake As Regards People Who Are Still Alive -- Who Are With Us In The Same Room? Talking And Acting Not To The Man Himself But To The Picture -- Almost The Précis -- We've Made Of Him In Our Own Minds? And He Has To Depart From It Pretty Widely Before We Even Notice The Fact.

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.

So Many Things--nay Every Real Thing--is Good If Only It Will Be Humble And Ordinate.

Let's Pray That The Human Race Never Escapes From Earth To Spread Its Iniquity Elsewhere.

He's Not Safe, But He's Good (referring To Aslan, The Lion, In The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe)

... Believing In A God Whom We Cannot But Regard As Evil, And Then, In Mere Terrified Flattery Calling Him 'good' And Worshipping Him Is A Still Greater Danger... The Ultimate Question Is Whether The Doctrine Of The Goodness Of God Or That Of The Inerrancy Of Scripture Is To Prevail When They Conflict. I Think The Doctrine Of The Goodness Of God Is The More Certain Of The Two. Indeed, Only That Doctrine Renders This Worship Of Him Obligatory Or Even Permissable.

Truth And Falsehood Are Opposed; But Truth Is The Norm Not Of Truth Only But Of Falsehood Also.

Truth And Falsehood

I Wish We Didn't Live In A World Where Buying And Selling Things Seems To Have Become Almost More Important Than Either Producing Or Using Them.

I Have Always At Least, Ever Since I Can Remember Had A Kind Of Longing For Death.

Isn't It Funny How Day By Day Nothing Changes, But When You Look Back, Everything Is Different.

Besides Reasoning About Matters Of Fact, Men Also Make Moral Judgements.

Children Have One Kind Of Silliness, As You Know, And Grown-ups Have Another Kind.

When We Christians Behave Badly, Or Fail To Behave Well, We Are Making Christianity Unbelievable To The Outside World. The Wartime Posters Told Us That Careless Talk Costs Lives. It Is Equally True That Careless Lives Cost Talk. Our Careless Lives Set The Outer World Talking; And We Give Them Grounds For Talking In A Way That Throws Doubt On The Truth Of Christianity Itself.

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.

Every Natural Love Will Rise Again And Live Forever In This Country: But None Will Rise Again Until It Has Been Buried.

The Very Idea Of Freedom Presupposes Some Objective Moral Law Which Overarches Rulers And Ruled Alike. Subjectivism About Moral Values Is Eternally Incompatible With Democracy. We And Our Rulers Are Of One Kind Only So Long As We Are Subject To One Law. But If There Is No Law Of Nature, The Ethos Of Any Society Is The Creation Of Its Rulers, Educators And Conditioners; And Every Creator Stands Above And Outside His Own Creation.

All Men Alike Stand Condemned, Not By Alien Codes Of Ethics, But By Their Own, And All Men Therefore Are Conscious Of Guilt.

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

The Truth Is, Of Course, That What One Regards As Interruptions Are Precisely One's Life.

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.

There Is No Doctrine Which I Would More Willingly Remove From Christianity Than The Doctrine Of Hell, If It Lay In My Power. But It Has The Support Of Scripture And, Especially, Of Our Lord's Own Words; It Has Always Been Held By The Christian Church, And It Has The Support Of Reason.

God Allows Us To Experience The Low Points Of Life In Order To Teach Us Lessons That We Could Learn In No Other Way.

When You Are Behaving As If You Loved Someone, You Will Presently Come To Love Them.

We Are What We Believe We Are.

Positive Thinking

Positive Attitude

But The Most Obvious Fact About Praise — Whether Of God Or Anything — Strangely Escaped Me. I Thought Of It In Terms Of Compliment, Approval, Or The Giving Of Honor. I Had Never Noticed That All Enjoyment Spontaneously Overflows Into Praise Unless (sometimes Even If) Shyness Or The Fear Of Boring Others Is Deliberately Brought In To Check It.

As Long As You Are Proud, You Cannot Know God.

The Moral Law Tells Us The Tune We Have To Play: Our Instincts Are Merely The Keys.

Away With Tears And Fears And Troubles! United In Wedlock With The Eternal Godhead Itself, Our Nature Ascends Into The Heaven Of Heavens. So It Would Be Impious To Call Ourselves 'miserable.' On The Contrary, Man Is A Creature Whom The Angels-were They Capable Of Envy-would Envy. Let Us Lift Up Our Hearts!

The Smallest Good Act Today Is The Capture Of A Strategic Point From Which, A Few Months Later, You May Be Able To Go On To Victories You Never Dreamed Of.

Unless The Religious Claims Of The Bible Are Again Acknowledged, Its Literary Claims Will, I Think, Be Given Only 'mouth Honour' And That Decreasingly.

Walking And Talking Are Two Very Great Pleasures, But It Is A Mistake To Combine Them. Our Own Noise Blots Out The Sounds And Silences Of The Outdoor World; And Talking Leads Almost Inevitably To Smoking, And Then Farewell To Nature As Far As One Of Our Senses Is Concerned. The Only Friend To Walk With Is One Who So Exactly Shares Your Taste For Each Mood Of The Countryside That A Glance, A Halt, Or At Most A Nudge, Is Enough To Assure Us That The Pleasure Is Shared.

Give Up Yourself, And You Will Find Your Real Self. Lose Your Life And You Will Save It.

Anyone Who Is Honestly Trying To Be A Christian Will Soon Find His Intelligence Being Sharpened: One Of The Reasons Why It Needs No Special Education To Be A Christian Is That Christianity Is An Education Itself. That Is Why An Uneducated Believer Like Bunyan Was Able To Write A Book That Has Astonished The Whole World.

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?

Isn't It Absolutely Essential To Keep A Fierce Left And Fierce Right, Both On Their Toes And Each Terrified Of The Other? That's How We Get Things Done.

It's Like The Sound Of A Chuckle In The Darkness. The Sense That Some Shattering And Disarming Simplicity Is The Real Answer.

You Will Say These Are Very Small Sins... [but] It Does Not Matter How Small The Sins Are Provided That Their Cumulative Effect Is To Edge The Man Away From The Light And Out Into The Nothing. Murder Is No Better Than Cards If Cards Can Do The Trick. Indeed, The Safest Road To Hell Is The Gradual One--the Gentle Slope, Soft Underfoot, Without Sudden Turnings, Without Milestones, Without Signposts

As To...old Composers Like Schubert Or Beethoven, I Imagine That, While Modern Music Expresses Both Feeling, Thought And Imagination, They Expressed Pure Feeling. And You Know All Day Sitting At Work, Eating, Walking, Etc., You Have Hundreds Of Feelings That Can't Be Put Into Words. And That Is Why I Think That In A Sense Music Is The Highest Of The Arts, Because It Really Begins Where The Others Leave Off.

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.

I#pray Because The Need Flows Out Of Me All The Time-walking And Sleeping. It Does Not Change #‎ God - It Changes Me.

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.

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

If The Immutable Heart Can Be Grieved By The Puppets Of Its Own Making, It Is Divine Omnipotence, No Other, That Has Subjected It, Freely, And In A Humility That Passes Understanding. If The World Exists Not Chiefly That We May Love God, But That God May Love Us, Yet That Very Fact, On A Deeper Level, Is So For Our Sakes. If He Who In Himself Can Lack Nothing Chooses To Need Us, It Is Because We Need To Be Needed.

The Higher Animals Are In A Sense Drawn Into Man When He Loves Them And Makes Them (as He Does) Much More Nearly Human Than They Would Otherwise Be.

For Prayer Is Request. The Essence Of Request, As Distinct From Compulsion, Is That It May Or May Not Be Granted.

The Only People Who Hate Escapism Are Jailers.

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.

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.

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

This Is My Endlessly Recurrent Temptation: To Go Down To That Sea, And There Neither Dive Nor Swim Nor Float, But Only Dabble And Splash, Careful Not To Get Out Of My Depth And Holding On To The Lifeline Which Connects Me With My Things Temporal.

You And I Have Need Of The Strongest Spell That Can Be Found To Wake Us From The Evil Enchantment Of Worldliness.

The Great Thing, If One Can, Is To Stop Regarding All The Unpleasant Things As Interruptions Of One's 'own,' Or 'real' Life. The Truth Is Of Course That What One Calls The Interruptions Are Precisely One's Real Life -- The Life God Is Sending One Day By Day.

No Great Wisdom Can Be Reached Without Sacrifice.

Without Sacrifice

If You Make The Same Guess Often Enough It Ceases To Be A Guess And Becomes A Scientific Fact. This Is The Inductive Method.

A Christian Society Is Not Going To Arrive Until Most Of Us Really Want It: And We Are Not Going To Want It Until We Become Fully Christian. I May Repeat "do As You Would Be Done By" Till I Am Black In The Fact, But I Cannot Really Carry It Out Till I Love My Neighbour As Myself: And I Cannot Learn To Love My Neighbour As Myself Till I Learn To Love God.

Mortal Lovers Must Not Try To Remain At The First Step; For Lasting Passion Is The Dream Of A Harlot And From It We Wake In Despair.

To Be In Love Involves The Most Irresistible Conviction That One Will Go On Being In Love Until One Dies, And That Possession Of The Beloved Will Confer, Not Merely Frequent Ecstasies, But Settled, Fruitful, Deep-rooted, Lifelong Happiness.

The Great Thing To Remember Is That Though Our Feelings Come And Go God's Love For Us Does Not.

Christian Inspirational

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.

I'm Hunger. I'm Thirst. Where I Bite, I Hold Till I Die, And Even After Death They Must Cut Out My Mouthful From My Enemy's Body And Bury It With Me. I Can Fast A Hundred Years And Not Die. I Can Lie A Hundred Nights On The Ice And Not Freeze. I Can Drink A River Of Blood And Not Burst. Show Me Your Enemies.

The Absent Are Easily Refuted.

Puddleglum,' They've Said, 'you're Altogether Too Full Of Bobance And Bounce And High Spirits. You've Got To Learn That Life Isn't All Fricasseed Frogs And Ell Pie. You Want Something To Sober You Down A Bit. We're Only Saying It For Your Own Good, Puddleglum.' That's What They Say. Now A Job Like This --a Journey Up North Just As Winter's Beginning Looking For A Prince That Probably Isn't There, By Way Of Ruined City Nobody's Ever Seen-- Will Be Just The Thing. If That Doesn't Steady A Chap, I Don't Know What Will.

We Are Not Merely Imperfect Creatures Who Must Be Improved; We Are Rebels Who Must Lay Down Our Arms.

It Would Seem That Our Lord Finds Our Desires Not Too Strong, But Too Weak. We Are Half-hearted Creatures, Fooling About With Drink And Sex And Ambition When Infinite Joy Is Offered Us, Like An Ignorant Child Who Wants To Go On Making Mud Pies In A Slum Because He Cannot Imagine What Is Meant By The Offer Of A Holiday At The Sea. We Are Far Too Easily Pleased.

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.

Always Prefer The Plain Direct Word To The Long, Vague One.

A Blessed Spirit Is A Mould Ever More And More Patient Of The Bright Metal Poured Into It, A Body Ever More Completely Uncovered To The Meridian Blaze Of The Spiritual Sun.

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.

First Be Sure That You Know Exactly What You Want To Say. Then Be Sure You Have Said Exactly That.

I Could Well Believe That It Is God's Intention, Since We Have Refused Milder Remedies, To Compel [christians] Into Unity, By Persecution Even. Satan Is Without Doubt Nothing Else Than A Hammer In The Hand Of A Benevolent And Severe God.

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

Joy Bursts In Our Lives When We Go About Doing The Good At Hand And Not Trying To Manipulate Things And Times To Achieve Joy.

Selfishness Has Never Been Admired.

Surely Arrested Development Consists Not In Refusing To Lose Old Things But In Failing To Add New Things.

If Anyone Would Like To Acquire Humility, I Can, I Think, Tell Him The First Step. The First Step Is To Realize That One Is Proud. And A Biggish Step, Too. At Least, Nothing Whatever Can Be Done Before It. If You Think You Are Not Conceited, It Means That You Are Very Conceited Indeed.

We Follow One Who Stood And Wept At The Grave Of Lazarus-not Surely, Because He Was Grieved That Mary And Martha Wept, And Sorrowed For Their Lack Of Faith (though Some Thus Interpret) But Because Death, The Punishment Of Sin, Is Even More Horrible In His Eyes Than In Ours.

Don't You Mind," Said Puddleglum. "there Are No Accidents. Our Guide Is Aslan; And He Was There When The Giant King Caused The Letters To Be Cut, And He Knew Already All Things That Would Come Of Them; Including This.

Don't Say It Was "delightful"; Make Us Say "delightful" When We've Read The Description.

Sexual Appetite, Like Any Other Appetite, Grows By Indulgence

Obedience Is The Road To Freedom.

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

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

Man's Conquest Of Nature, If The Dreams Of Some Scientific Planners Are Realized, Means The Rule Of A Few Hundreds Of Men Over Billions Upon Billions Of Men. There Neither Is Nor Can Be Any Simple Increase Of Power On Man's Side. Each New Power Won By Man Is A Power Over Man As Well.

We Were Made Not Primarily That We May Love God, But That God May Love Us.

The Fact That Our Heart Yearns For Something Earth Can't Supply Is Proof That Heaven Must Be Our Home.

Your Majesty Would Have A Perfect Right To Strike Off His Head," Said Peridan. "such An Assault As He Made Puts Him On A Level With Assassins." "it Is Very True," Said Edmund. "but Even A Traitor May Mend. I Have Known One That Did." And He Looked Very Thoughtful.

I Cannot Understand How A Man Can Appear In Print Claiming To Disbelieve Everything That He Presupposes When He Puts On The Surplice. I Feel It Is A Form Of Prostitution.

Children Are Not Deceived By Fairy-tales; They Are Often And Gravely Deceived By School-stories. Adults Are Not Deceived By Science-fiction ; They Can Be Deceived By The Stories In The Women's Magazines.

To Love At All Is To Be Vulnerable.

If Conversion Makes No Improvements In A Man's Outward Actions Then I Think His 'conversion' Was Largely Imaginary.

Wouldn't He Know Without Being Asked?' Said Polly. 'i've No Doubt He Would,' Said The Horse (still With His Mouth Full). 'but I've A Sort Of An Idea He Likes To Be Asked.

What Seem Our Worst Prayers May Really Be, In God's Eyes, Our Best. Those, I Mean, Which Are Least Supported By Devotional Feeling. For These May Come From A Deeper Level Than Feeling. God Sometimes Seems To Speak To Us Most Intimately When He Catches Us, As It Were, Off Our Guard.

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.

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

Surely What A Man Does When He Is Taken Off Guard Is The Best Evidence For What Sort Of Man He Is. If There Are Rats In A Cellar, You Are Most Likely To See Them If You Go In Very Suddenly. But The Suddenness Does Not Create The Rats; It Only Prevents Them From Hiding. In The Same Way The Suddenness Of The Provocation Does Not Make Me Ill Tempered; It Only Shows Me What An Ill-tempered Man I Am.

Inspirational Life

We Meet No Ordinary People In Our Lives.

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.

Forgiving And Being Forgiven Are Two Names For The Same Thing. The Important Thing Is That A Discord Has Been Resolved.

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.

You Must Picture Me Alone In That Room In Magdalen, Night After Night, Feeling, Whenever My Mind Lifted Even For A Second From My Work, The Steady, Unrelenting Approach Of Him Whom I So Earnestly Desired Not To Meet. That Which I Greatly Feared Had At Last Come Upon Me. In The Trinity Term Of 1929 I Gave In, And Admitted That God Was God, And Knelt And Prayed: Perhaps, That Night, The Most Dejected And Reluctant Convert In All England.

Some People Write Heavily, Some Write Lightly. I Prefer The Light Approach Because I Believe There Is A Great Deal Of False Reverence About. There Is Too Much Solemnity And Intensity In Dealing With Sacred Matters; Too Much Speaking In Holy Tones.

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

We May Not Be Able To Get Certainty, But We Can Get Probability, And Half A Loaf Is Better Than No Bread.

Where, Except In The Present, Can The Eternal Be Met?

The Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do Is To Take Any One Impulse Of Your Own Nature And Set It Up As The Thing You Ought To Follow At All Costs. There Is Not One Of Them Which Will Not Make Us Into Devils If We Set It Up As An Absolute Guide. You Might Think Love Of Humanity In General Was Safe, But It Is Not. If You Leave Out Justice You Will Find Yourself Breaking Agreements And Faking Evidence In Trials "for The Sake Of Humanity", And Become In The End A Cruel And Treacherous Man.

Friendship Is Born At That Moment When A Single Particular Person Claims To A Different: 'what! You Far Too? I Assumed I Was The Only Real One Particular.

The Very Lack Of Evidence Is Thus Treated As Evidence; The Absence Of Smoke Proves That The Fire Is Very Carefully Hidden...a Belief In Invisible Cats Cannot Be Logically Disproved Although It Does Tell Us A Good Deal About Those Who Hold It.

Things Never Happen The Same Way Twice.

Our Desire Is Not Only To See Glory, But To Participate In The Glory We See.

Is There A Difference Between A Man Who Thinks That Honesty Is The Best Policy, And An Honest Man?

I Am Struck Here By The Curious Mixture Of Justice And Injustice In Our Lives. We Are Blamed For Our Real Faults But Usually Not On The Right Occasions.

And This Is The Marvel Of Marvels; That He Called Me Beloved.

If You Are Really A Product Of A Materialistic Universe, How Is It That You Don't Feel At Home There?

Prosperity Knits A Man To The World.

Screwtape Letters

Now God, Who Has Made Us, Knows What We Are And That Our Happiness Lies In Him.

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.

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.

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?

We Seek An Enlargement Of Our Being. We Want To Be More Than Ourselves . . . We Want To See With Other Eyes, To Imagine With Other Imaginations, To Feel With Other Hearts, As Well As With Our Own . . . We Demand Windows.

You Find Out More About God From The Moral Law Than From The Univerise In General Just As You Find Out More About A Man By Listening To His Conversation Than By Looking At A House He Has Built.

As St. Paul Points Out, Christ Never Meant That We Were To Remain Children In Intelligence: On The Contrary, He Told Us To Be Not Only "as Harmless As Doves," But Also "as Wise As Serpents." He Wants A Child's Heart, But A Grown-up's Head.

Something Of God... Flows Into Us From The Blue Of The Sky, The Taste Of Honey, The Delicious Embrace Of Water Whether Cold Or Hot, And Even From Sleep Itself.

Many A Man, Brought Up In The Glib Profession Of Some Shallow Form Of Christianity, Who Comes Through Reading Astronomy To Realize For The First Time How Majestically Indifferent Most Reality Is To Man, And Who Perhaps Abandons His Religion On That Account, May At That Moment Be Having His First Genuinely Religious Experience.

To Admire Satan [in Paradise Lost] Is To Give One's Vote Not Only For A World Of Misery, But Also For A World Of Lies And Propaganda, Of Wishful Thinking, Of Incessant Autobiography.

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

They Were Pretty Tired By Now Of Course; But Not What I’d Call Bitterly Tired – Only Slow And Feeling Very Dreamy And Tired As One Does When One Is Coming To The End Of A Long Day In The Open.

What The Soul Cries Out For Is The Resurrection Of The Senses. Even In This Life, Matter Would Be Nothing To Us If It Were Not The Source Of Sensations.

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

Never, Never Pin Your Whole Faith On Any Human Being: Not If He Is The Best And Wisest In The Whole World. There Are Lots Of Nice Things You Can Do With Sand; But Do Not Try Building A House On It.

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.

This Is The Land Of Narnia,' Said The Faun, 'where We Are Now; All That Lies Between The Lamp-post And The Great Castle Of Cair Paravel On The Eastern Sea.

A Perfect Practice Of Christianity Would, Of Course, Consist In A Perfect Imitation Of The Life Of Christ -- I Mean, In So Far As It Was Applicable In One's Own Particular Circumstance. Not In An Idiotic Sense -- It Doesn't Mean That Every Christian Should Grow A Beard, Or Be A Bachelor, Or Become A Travelling Preacher. It Means That Every Single Act And Feeling, Every Experience, Whether Pleasant Or Unpleasant, Must Be Referred To God.

The New Testament Writers Speak As If Christ's Achievement In Rising From The Dead Was The First Event Of Its Kind In The Whole History Of The Universe. He Is The 'first Fruits,' The Pioneer Of Life,' He Has Forced Open A Door That Has Been Locked Since The Death Of The First Man. He Has Met, Fought, And Beaten The King Of Death. Everything Is Different Because He Has Done So.

But No One Except Lucy Knew That As It Circled The Mast It Had Whispered To Her, "courage, Dear Heart," And The Voice, She Felt Sure, Was Aslan's, And With The Voice A Delicious Smell Breathed In Her Face.

We Reduce Things To Mere Nature In Order That We May "conquer" Them.

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.

There Are No Variations Except For Those Who Know A Norm, And No Subtleties For Those Who Have Not Grasped The Obvious.

I Have At Last Come To The End Of The Faerie Queene: And Though I Say "at Last", I Almost Wish He Had Lived To Write Six Books More As He Had Hoped To Do — So Much Have I Enjoyed It.

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

Now The Trouble About Trying To Make Yourself Stupider Than You Really Are Is That You Very Often Succeed.

The Central Christian Belief Is That Christ's Death Has Somehow Put Us Right With God And Given Us A Fresh Start. Theories As To How It Did This Are Another Matter. A Good Many Different Theories Have Been Held As To How It Works; What All Christians Are Agreed On Is That It Does Work.

The World Is So Much Larger Than I Thought. I Thought We Went Along Paths--but It Seems There Are No Paths. The Going Itself Is The Path.

And Above All, You Must Be Asking Which Door Is The True One; Not Which Pleases You Best By Its Paint And Panelling…the Question Should Never Be: ‘do I Like That Kind Of Service?’ But ‘are These Doctrines True: Is Holiness There? Does My Conscience Move Me Towards This? Is My Reluctance To Move To This Door Due To My Pride, Or My Mere Taste, Or My Personal Dislike For This Particular Door-keeper?

Catch {a Man} At The Moment When He Is Really Poor In Spirit And Smuggle Into His Mind The Gratifying Reflection, "by Jove, I'm Being Humble," And Almost Immediately Pride - Pride At His Own Humility - Will Appear.

But If We Admit God, Must We Admit Miracle? Indeed, Indeed, You Have No Security Against It. That Is The Bargain. Theology Says To You In Effect, 'admit God And With Him The Risk Of A Few Miracles, And I In Return Will Ratify Your Faith In Uniformity As Regards The Overwhelming Majority Of Events.

The State Exists Simply To Promote And To Protect The Ordinary Happiness Of Human Beings In This Life. A Husband And Wife Chatting Over A Fire, A Couple Of Friends Having A Game Of Darts In A Pub, A Man Reading A Book In His Own Room Or Digging In His Own Garden-that Is What The State Is There For. And Unless They Are Helping To Increase And Prolong And Protect Such Moments, All The Laws, Parliaments, Armies, Courts, Police, Economics, Etc., Are Simply A Waste Of Time.

There Are A Dozen Views About Everything Until You Know The Answer. Then There's Never More Than One.

Non-christians Seem To Think That The Incarnation Implies Some Particular Merit Or Excellence In Humanity. But Of Course It Implies Just The Reverse: A Particular Demerit And Depravity. No Creature That Deserved Redemption Would Need To Be Redeemed. They That Are Whole Need Not The Physician. Christ Died For Men Precisely Because Men Are Not Worth Dying For; To Make Them Worth It.

Those Of Us Who Are Blamed When Old For Reading Childish Books Were Blamed When Children For Reading Books Too Old For Us.

The Real Trouble About The Duty Of Forgiveness Is That You Do It With All Your Might On Monday And Then Find On Wednesday That It Hasn't Stayed Put And All Has To Be Done Over Again.

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'.

The Human Spirit Will Not Even Begin To Try To Surrender Self-will As Long As All Seems To Be Well With It. Now Error And Sin Both Have This Property, That The Deeper They Are The Less Their Victim Suspects Their Existence; They Are Masked Evil. Pain Is Unmasked, Unmistakable Evil; Every Man Knows That Something Is Wrong When He Is Being Hurt.

But As For Aslan Himself, The Beavers And The Children Didn't Know What To Do Or Say When They Saw Him. People Who Have Not Been In Narnia Sometimes Think That A Thing Cannot Be Good And Terrible At The Same Time. If The Children Had Ever Thought So, They Were Cured Of It Now. For When They Tried To Look At Aslan's Face They Just Caught A Glimpse Of The Golden Mane And The Great, Royal, Solemn, Overwhelming Eyes; And Then They Found They Couldn't Look At Him And Went All Trembly.

I Have Seen Landscapes . . . Which, Under A Particular Light, Make Me Feel That At Any Moment A Giant Might Raise His Head Over The Next Ridge.

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

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 Sometimes Pray Not For Self-knowledge In General But For Just So Much Self Knowledge At The Moment As I Can Bear And Use At The Moment; The Little Daily Dose.

The Christian Idea Of Marriage Is Based On Christ's Words That A Man And Wife Are To Be Regarded As A Single Organism - For That Is What The Words 'one Flesh' Would Be In Modern English. And The Christians Believe That When He Said This He Was Not Expressing A Sentiment But Stating A Fact - Just As One Is Stating A Fact When One Says That A Lock And Its Key Are One Mechanism, Or That A Violin And A Bow Are One Musical Instrument.

The Sweet Heavy Smell Grew Very Much Less. For Though The Whole Fire Had Not Been Put Out, A Good Bit Of It Had, And What Remained Smelled Very Largely Of Burnt Marsh-wiggle, Which Is Not At All An Enchanting Smell.

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.

If No Set Of Moral Ideas Were Truer Or Better Than Any Other, There Would Be No Sense In Preferring Civilised Morality To Savage Morality.

It's So Much Easier To Pray For A Bore Than To Go And See One.

Each Generation Exercises Power Over Its Successors: And Each, In So Far As It Modifies The Environment Bequeathed To It And Rebels Against Tradition, Resists And Limits The Power Of Its Predecessors.

Thought Provoking

The Old Testament Contains Fabulous Elements. The New Testament Consists Mostly Of Teaching, Not Of Narrative At All: But Where It Is Narrative, It Is, In My Opinion, Historical. As To The Fabulous Element In The Old Testament, I Very Much Doubt If You Would Be Wise To Chuck It Out.

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.

What We Have Been Told Is How We Men Can Be Drawn Into Christ-can Become Part Of That Wonderful Present Which The Young Prince Of The Universe Wants To Offer To His Father-that Present Which Is Himself And Therefore Us In Him. It Is The Only Thing We Were Made For. And There Are Strange, Exciting Hints In The Bible That When We Are Drawn In, A Great Many Other Things In Nature Will Begin To Come Right. The Bad Dream Will Be Over: It Will Be Morning.

Prayer Does Not Change God; It Changes Me.

You're A Mere Chick. I Remember You When You Were A Egg. Don't Come Trying To Teach Me, Sir. Crabs And Crumpets!

The Basic Proposal Of The New Education Is To Be That Dunces And Idlers Must Not Be Made To Feel Inferior To Intelligent And Industrious Pupils. That Would Be 'undemocratic.

Suspicion Often Creates What It Suspects.

Screwtape Letters

You Understand Sleep When You Are Awake, Not While You Are Sleeping. You Can See Mistakes In Arithmetic When Your Mind Is Working Properly; While You Are Making Them You Cannot See Them. Good People Know About Both Bad And Evil; Bad People Do Not Know About Either.

If I, Being What I Am, Can Consider That I Am In Some Sense A Christian, Why Should The Different Vices Of Those People In The Next Pew Prove That Their Religion Is Mere Hypocrisy And Convention?

If Education Is Beaten By Training, Civilization Dies.

We May Think God Wants Actions Of A Certain Kind, But God Wants People Of A Certain Kind.

In The Midst Of A World Of Light And Love, Of Song And Feast And Dance, [lucifer] Could Find Nothing To Think Of More Interesting Than His Own Prestige.

I Wonder Do The Gods Know What It Feels Like To Be A Man.

When The Most Important Things In Our Life Happen We Quite Often Do Not Know, At The Moment, What Is Going On.

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.

When We Are Such As He Can Love Without Impediment, We Shall In Fact Be Happy.

The Moment You Wake Up Each Morning, All Your Wishes And Hopes For The Day Rush At You Like Wild Animals. And The First Job Each Morning Consists In Shoving It All Back; In Listening To That Other Voice, Taking That Other Point Of View, Letting That Other, Larger, Stronger, Quieter Life Come Flowing In.

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.

The Only Thing Christianity Can Not Be...is Moderately Important.

As A Christian I Take It For Granted That Human History Will Some Day End; And I Am Offering Omniscience No Advice As To The Best Date For That Consummation.

Emeth Speaking Of Aslan, "beloved, Said The Glorious One, Unless Thy Desire Had Been For Me Thou Wouldst Not Have Sought So Long And So Truly. For All Find What They Truly Seek...and Since Then, O Kings And Ladies, I Have Been Wandering To Find Him And My Happiness Is So Great That It Even Weakens Me Like A Wound. And This Is The Marvel Of Marvels, That He Called Me Beloved, Me Who Am But As A Dog

Language Exists To Communicate Whatever It Can Communicate. Some Things It Communicates So Badly That We Never Attempt To Communicate Them By Words If Any Other Medium Is Available.

Well!' Said Puddleglum, Rubbing His Hands. 'this Is Just What I Needed. If These Chaps Don't Teach Me To Take A Serious View Of Life, I Don't Know What Will.

A Particular Ikon An Aid To Devotion May Be Itself A Word Of Art, But That Is Logically Accidental; Its Artistic Merits Will Not Make It A Better ... Ikon. They May Make It A Worse One.

Pooh! Grown-ups Are Always Thinking Of Uninteresting Explanations.

We Were Promised Sufferings. They Were Part Of The Program. We Were Even Told, Blessed Are They That Morn.

I Think Earth, If Chosen Instead Of Heaven, Will Turn Out To Have Been, All Along, Only A Region In Hell; And Earth, If Put Second To Heaven, To Have Been From The Beginning A Part Of Heaven Itself.

Most People Don't Need To Be Taught, They Need Only To Be Reminded

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