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I Am A Product Of Endless Books. My Father Bought All The Books He Read And Never Got Rid Of Any Of Them. There Were Books In The Study, Books In The Drawing Room, Books In The Cloakroom, Books (two Deep) In The Great Bookcase On The Landing, Books In A Bedroom, Books Piled As High As My Shoulder In The Cistern Attic...in The Seemingly Endless Rainy Afternoons I Took Volume After Volume From The Shelves. 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.
-C. S. Lewis
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I Am A Product

C. S. Lewis
I Am A Product Of Endless Books. My Father Bought All The Books He Read And Never Got Rid Of Any Of Them. There Were Books In The Study, Books In The Drawing Room, Books In The Cloakroom, Books (two Deep) In The Great Bookcase On The Landing, Books In A Bedroom, Books Piled As High As My Shoulder In The Cistern Attic...in The Seemingly Endless Rainy Afternoons I Took Volume After Volume From The Shelves. 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.
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Mean
Thinking
Chronological Snobbery Is The Uncritical Acceptance Of The Intellectual Climate Common To Our Own Age And The Assumption That Whatever Has Gone Out Of Date Is On That Account Discredited. You Must Find Why It Went Out Of Date. Was It Ever Refuted (and If So By Whom, Where, And How Conclusively), Or Did It Merely Die Away As Fashions Do? If The Latter, This Tells Us Nothing About Its Truth Or Falsehood.
Fashion
Acceptance
Intellectual
Everything Except God Has Some Natural Superior; Everything Except Unformed Matter Has Some Natural Inferior.
Matter
Natural
Inferiors
The Standard That Measures Two Things Is Something Different From Either. You Are, In Fact, Comparing Them Both With Some Real Morality, Admitting That There Is Such A Thing As A Real Right, Independent Of What People Think, And That Some People's Ideas Get Nearer To That Real Right Than Others.
Real
Independent
Thinking
And How Could We Endure To Live And Let Time Pass If We Were Always Crying For One Day Or One Year To Come Back--if We Did Not Know That Every Day In A Life Fills The Whole Life With Expectation And Memory And That These Are That Day?
Memories
Years
Expectations
All Joy... Emphasizes Our Pilgrim Status; Always Reminds, Beckons, Awakens Desire. Our Best Havings Are Wantings.
Joy
Desire
Pilgrim
Actually It Seems To Me That One Can Hardly Say Anything Either Bad Enough Or Good Enough About Life.
Say Anything
Good Enough
Enough
Any Patch Of Sunlight In A Wood Will Show You Something About The Sun Which You Could Never Get From Reading Books On Astronomy. These Pure And Spontaneous Pleasures Are ‘patches Of Godlight’ In The Woods Of Our Experience.
Book
Reading
Woods
Sainthood Lies In The Habit Of Referring The Smallest Actions To God.
Lying
Sainthood
Action
It Is Hardly Complimentary To God That We Should Choose Him As An Alternative To Hell.
Alternatives
Hell
Should
The Church Exists For Nothing Else But To Draw Men Into Christ.
Men
Church
Christ
With My Mother's Death All Settled Happiness, All That Was Tranquil And Reliable, Disappeared From My Life. There Was To Be Much Fun, Many Pleasures, Many Stabs Of Joy; But No More Of The Old Security. It Was Sea And Islands Now; The Great Continent Had Sunk Like Atlantis.
Happiness
Mother
Fun
The Homemaker Has The Ultimate Career. All Other Careers Exist For One Purpose Only - And That Is To Support The Ultimate Career.
Family
Friends
Careers
Sometimes It Is Hard Not To Say, 'god Forgive God.' Sometimes It Is Hard To Say So Much. But If Our Faith Is True, He Didn't. He Crucified Him.
Forgiving
Sometimes
God Forgives
Don't Think Of God In Terms Of Forms, Because Forms Are Limited And God Is Unlimited.
Spiritual
Thinking
Form
The Enemy Wants To Bring The Man To A State Of Mind In Which He Could Design The Best Cathedral In The World, And Know It To Be The Best, And Rejoice In The Fact, Without Being Any More (or Less) Or Otherwise Glad At Having Done It Than He Would Be If It Had Been Done By Another. The Enemy Wants Him, In The End, To Be So Free From Any Bias In His Own Favour That He Can Rejoice In His Own Talents As Frankly And Gratefully As In His Neighbour's Talents--or In A Sunrise, An Elephant, Or A Waterfall.
Men
Elephants
Design
The Only Things We Can Keep Are The Things We Freely Give To God. What We Try To Keep For Ourselves Is Just What We Are Sure To Lose.
Letting Go
Giving
Trying
I Can Imagine No Man Who Will Look With More Horror On The End Than A Conscientious Revolutionary Who Has, In A Sense Sincerely, Been Justifying Cruelties And Injustices Inflicted On Millions Of His Contemporaries By The Benefits Which He Hopes To Confer On Future Generations: Generations Who, As One Terrible Moment Now Reveals To Him, Were Never Going To Exist. Then He Will See The Massacres, The Faked Trials, The Deportations, To Be All Ineffaceably Real, An Essential Part, His Part, In The Drama That Has Just Ended: While The Future Utopia Had Never Been Anything But A Fantasy.
Real
Drama
Men
In The Name Of The Fathers, And Of The Son And Of The Holy Ghost, Here Goes-i Mean Amen.
Father
Mean
Son
He Produced Mainly Three Results: Hatred, Terror, Adoration.
Hatred
Three
Results
One Flesh. Or If You Prefer, One Ship. The Starboard Engine Has Gone. I, The Port Engine, Must Chug Along Somehow Till We Make Harbour. Or Rather, Till The Journey Ends.
Journey
Wife
Gone
Why Should Your Majesty Think It? My Own Plans Are Made. While I May, I Sail East In Dawn Treader. When She Fails Me, I Row East In My Coracle. When That Sinks, Shall I Paddle East With My Four Paws. Then, When I Can Swim No Longer, If I Have Not Yet Reached Aslan's Country, There Shall I Sink With My Nose To The Sunrise... And Peepiceek Will Be Head Of Talking Mice In Narnia
Country
Thinking
Talking
We Can Ignore Even Pleasure. But Pain Insists Upon Being Attended To. God Whispers To Us In Our Pleasures, Speaks In Our Conscience, But Shouts In Our Pains: It Is His Megaphone To Rouse A Deaf World....no Doubt Pain As God's Megaphone Is A Terrible Instrument; It May Lead To Final And Unrepented Rebellion. But It Gives The Only Opportunity The Bad Man Can Have For Amendment. It Removes The Veil; It Plants The Flag Of Truth Within The Fortress Of The Rebel Soul.
Pain
Opportunity
Men
Pure, Spiritual, Intellectual Love Shot Form Their Faces Like Barbedlightning. It Was So Unlike The Love We Experience That Its Expressioncould Easily Be Mistaken For Ferocity.
Spiritual
Intellectual
Faces
The Point Is That For Our Ancestors, The Universe Was A Picture; For Modern Physics It Is A Story.
Stories
Physics
Modern
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
Heaven Will Display Far More Variety Than Hell.
Heaven
Hell
Variety
Believe In God Like You Believe In The Sunrise. Not Because You Can See It, But Because You Can See All It Touches.
Believe
Sunrise
Like You
I Seemed To Hear God Saying, "put Down Your Gun And We'll Talk.
Gun
You Die And Die And Then You Are Beyond Death.
Dies
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
When You Come To Knowing God, The Initiative Lies On His Side. If He Does Not Show Himself, Nothing You Can Do Will Enable You To Find Him. And, In Fact, He Shows Much More Of Himself To Some People Than To Others—not Because He Has Favourites, But Because It Is Impossible For Him To Show Himself To A Man Whose Whole Mind And Character Are In The Wrong Condition. Just As Sunlight, Though It Has No Favourites, Cannot Be Reflected In A Dusty Mirror As Clearly As In A Clean One.
Lying
Character
Men
If Nothing In This World Satisfies Me, Perhaps It Is Because I Was Made For Another World.
World
Made
Ifs
But I Will Not Tell You How Long Or Short The Way Will Be; Only That It Lies Across A River. But Do Not Fear That, For I Am The Great Bridge Builder.
Lying
Bridges
Rivers
How Little People Know Who Think That Holiness Is Dull... When One Meets The Real Thing, It's Irresistible!
Inspirational
Life
Real
Christianity Is Not A Patent Medicine. Christianity Claims To Give An Account Of Facts - To Tell You What The Real Universe Is Like. Its Account Of The Universe May Be True, Or It May Not, And Once The Question Is Really Before You, Then Your Natural Inquisitiveness Must Make You Want To Know The Answer. If Christianity Is Untrue, Then No Honest Man Will Want To Believe It, However Helpful It Might Be: If It Is True, Every Honest Man Will Want To Believe It, Even If It Gives Him No Help At All.
Real
Believe
Men
The Story Does What No Theorem Can Quite Do. It May Not Be "like Real Life" In The Superficial Sense: But It Sets Before Us An Image Of What Reality May Well Be Like At Some More Central Region.
Real
Doe
Stories
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.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Nature
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.
Feet
Giants
Stones
Christianity Asserts That Every Individual Human Being Is Going To Live For Ever, And This Must Be Either True Or False. Now There Are A Good Many Things Which Would Not Be Worth Bothering About If I Were Going To Live Only Seventy Years, But Which I Had Better Bother About Very Seriously If I Am Going To Live For Ever.
Years
Good Man
True Or False
When You Argue Against Him You Are Arguing Against The Very Power That Makes You Able To Argue At All: It Is Like Cutting Off The Branch You Are Sitting On.
Cutting
Religion
Sitting
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.
Real
Men
People
You Are Guilty Of No Evil, Ransom Of Thulcandra, Except A Little Fearfulness. For That, The Journey You Go On Is Your Pain, And Perhaps Your Cure: For You Must Be Either Mad Or Brave Before It Is Ended.
Pain
Fear
Journey
The True Reader Reads Every Work Seriously In The Sense That He Reads It Whole-heartedly, Makes Himself As Receptive As He Can. But For That Very Reason He Cannot Possibly Read Every Work Solemly Or Gravely. For He Will Read 'in The Same Spirit That The Author Writ.'... He Will Never Commit The Error Of Trying To Munch Whipped Cream As If It Were Venison.
Errors
Trying
Spirit
He Liked Books If They Were Books Of Information And Had Pictures Of Grain Elevators Or Of Fat Foreign Children Doing Exercises In Model Schools.
Children
Book
School
The Moment Good Taste Knows Itself, Some Of Its Goodness Is Lost.
Taste
Moments
Goodness
You Can't Just Go On Being A Good Egg. You Must Either Hatch Or Go Bad!
Eggs
Goes On
To Be Ignorant And Simple Now-not To Be Able To Meet The Enemies On Their Own Ground-would Be To Throw Down Our Weapons And To Betray Our Uneducated Brethren Who Have, Under God, No Defense But Us Against The Intellectual Attacks Of The Heathen. Good Philosophy Must Exist, If For No Other Reason, Because Bad Philosophy Needs To Be Answered.
Philosophy
Simple
Intellectual
The Heart Of Christianity Is A Myth Which Is Also A Fact. The Old Myth Of The Dying God, Without Ceasing To Be Myth, Comes Down From The Heaven Of Legend And Imagination To The Earth Of History. It Happens - At A Particular Date, In A Particular Place, Followed By Definable Historical Consequences. We Pass From A Balder Or An Osiris, Dying Nobody Knows When Or Where, To A Historical Person Crucified (it Is All In Order) Under Pontius Pilate. By Becoming Fact It Does Not Cease To Be Myth: That Is The Miracle.
Heart
Osiris
Order
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
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
Reasoning Is Never, Like Poetry, Judged From The Outside At All.
Wisdom
Reasoning
Judged
Friendship Exhibits A Glorious "nearness By Resemblance" To Heaven Itself Where The Very Multitude Of The Blessed (which No Man Can Number) Increases The Fruition Which Each Has Of God. For Every Soul, Seeing Him In Her Own Way, Doubtless Communicates That Unique Vision To All The Rest. That, Says An Old Author, Is Why The Seraphim In Isaiah's Vision Are Crying "holy, Holy, Holy" To One Another (isaiah Vi, 3). The More We Thus Share The Heavenly Bread Between Us, The More We Shall All Have.
Blessed
Unique
Men
Something Deep In The Human Heart Breaks At The Thought Of A Life Of Mediocrity.
Heart
Mediocrity
Break
Love Is Unselfishly Choosing For Another's Highest Good.
Love
Relationship Advice
Highest
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
Aslan: You Doubt Your Value. Don't Run From Who You Are.
Running
Doubt
Narnia
It Is Christ Himself, Not The Bible, Who Is The True Word Of God. The Bible, Read In The Right Spirit And With The Guidance Of Good Teachers, Will Bring Us To Him.
Teacher
Taken
Use
The Cross Comes Before The Crown And Tomorrow Is A Monday Morning!
Monday
Morning
Crowns
I Am A Product [...of] Endless Books.
Book
Endless
Products
It Is Wonderful What You Can Do When You Have To.
Wonderful
Can Do
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.
Cutting
Two
Coward
It Still Remains True That No Justification Of Virtue Will Enable A Man To Be Virtuous.
Wisdom
Men
Virtue
Prayer Does Not Change God; It Changes Me.
Prayer
Doe
Change God
[to Have Faith In Christ] Means, Of Course, Trying To Do All That He Says. There Would Be No Sense In Saying You Trusted A Person If You Would Not Take His Advice. Thus If You Have Really Handed Yourself Over To Him, It Must Follow That You Are Trying To Obey Him. But Trying In A New Way, A Less Worried Way. Not Doing These Things In Order To Be Saved, But Because He Has Begun To Save You Already. Not Hoping To Get To Heaven As A Reward For Your Actions, But Inevitably Wanting To Act In A Certain Way Because A First Faint Gleam Of Heaven Is Already Inside You.
Faith
Mean
Order
Those Of Us Who Are Blamed When Old For Reading Childish Books Were Blamed When Children For Reading Books Too Old For Us.
Children
Book
Reading
You Can't Go Back And Change The Beginning, But You Can Start Where You Are And Change The Ending.
Where You Are
It Would Be Nice And Fairly Nearly True, To Say That 'from That Time Forth, Eustace Was A Different Boy.' To Be Strictly Accurate, He Began To Be A Different Boy. He Had Relapses. There Were Still Many Days When He Could Be Very Tiresome. But Most Of Those I Shall Not Notice. The Cure Had Begun.
Nice
Boys
Different
..(t)here Are Two Opposite Reasons For Being A Democrat. You May Think All Men So Good That They Deserve A Share In The Government Of The Commonwealth, And So Wise That The Commonwealth Needs Their Advice. That Is, In My Opinion, The False, Romantic Doctrine Of Democracy. On The Other Hand, You May Believe Fallen Men To Be So Wicked That Not One Of Them Can Be Trusted With Any Irresponsible Power Over His Fellows.
Wise
Believe
Men
We Were Made To Be Neither Cerebral Men Nor Visceral Men, But Men. Not Beasts Nor Angels But Men - Things At Once Rational And Animal.
Angel
Animal
Men
Do Not Look Sad. We Shall Meet Soon Again." "please, Aslan", Said Lucy,"what Do You Call Soon?" "i Call All Times Soon" Said Aslan; And Instantly He Was Vanished Away.
Looks
Said
All Time
He Who Has God And Everything Else Has No More Than He Who Has God Only.
God
Christian
Theologian
The Whole Difficulty Of Understanding Hell Is That The Thing To Be Understood Is So Nearly Nothing.
Inspirational
Religious
Understanding
In Great Literature, I Become A Thousand Different Men But Still Remain Myself.
Men
Different
Literature
The Greatest Evils In The World Will Not Be Carried Out By Men With Guns, But By Men In Suits Sitting Behind Desks
Gun
Men
Evil
When He Was A Young Man He Prayed Constantly For Chastity; But Years Later He Realized That While His Lips Had Been Saying 'oh Lord, Make Me Chaste,' His Heart Had Been Secretly Adding, 'but Please Don't Do It Just Yet.
Heart
Men
Years
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
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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