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I Do Not Believe One Can Settle How Much We Ought To Give. I Am Afraid The Only Safe Rule Is To Give More Than We Can Spare. In Other Words, If Our Expenditure On Comforts, Luxuries, Amusements, Etc, Is Up To The Standard Common Among Those With The Same Income As Our Own, We Are Probably Giving Away Too Little. If Our Charities Do Not At All Pinch Or Hamper Us, I Should Say They Are Too Small. There Ought To Be Things We Should Like To Do And Cannot Do Because Our Charitable Expenditure Excludes Them.

-C. S. Lewis

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I Do Not Believe

C. S. Lewis

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I Do Not Believe One Can Settle How Much We Ought To Give. I Am Afraid The Only Safe Rule Is To Give More Than We Can Spare. In Other Words, If Our Expenditure On Comforts, Luxuries, Amusements, Etc, Is Up To The Standard Common Among Those With The Same Income As Our Own, We Are Probably Giving Away Too Little. If Our Charities Do Not At All Pinch Or Hamper Us, I Should Say They Are Too Small. There Ought To Be Things We Should Like To Do And Cannot Do Because Our Charitable Expenditure Excludes Them.

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To Live In A Fully Predictable World Is Not To Be A Man.

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Friendship Is The Instrument By Which God Reveals To Each Of Us The Beauties Of Others.

The Promise, Made When I Am In Love And Because I Am In Love, To Be True To The Beloved As Long As I Live, Commits Me To Being True Even If I Cease To Be In Love. A Promise Must Be About Things That I Can Do, About Actions: No One Can Promise To Go On Feeling In A Certain Way. He Might As Well Promise To Never Have A Headache Or Always To Feel Hungry.

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Making A Difference

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

Autumn Is Really The Best Of The Seasons

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

Some Have Paid Me An Undeserved Compliment By Supposing That My Letters Were The Ripe Fruit Of Many Years' Study In Moral And Ascetic Theology. They Forgot That There Is An Equally Reliable, Though Less Creditable, Way Of Learning How Temptation Works.

How Could An Idiotic Universe Have Produced Creatures Whose Mere Dreams Are So Much Stronger, Better, Subtler Than Itself?

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We Have A Strange Illusion That Mere Time Cancels Sin.

People Who Bore One Another Should Meet Seldom; People Who Interest One Another, Often.

I Hope No One Who Reads This Book Has Been Quite As Miserable As Susan And Lucy Were That Night; But If You Have Been - If You've Been Up All Night And Cried Till You Have No More Tears Left In You - You Will Know That There Comes In The End A Sort Of Quietness. You Feel As If Nothing Is Ever Going To Happen Again.

Even When I Feared And Detested Christianity, I Was Struck By Its Essential Unity, Which, In Spite Of Its Divisions, It Has Never Lost. I Trembled On Recognizing The Same Unmistakable Aroma Coming From The Writings Of Dante And Bunyan, Thomas Aquinas And William Law.

Think Of A Country Where People Were Admired For Running Away In Battle, Or Where A Man Felt Proud Of Double-crossing All The People Who Had Been Kindest To Him. You Might Just As Well Try To Imagine A Country Where Two And Two Made Five.

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Burden Of Proof

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Telling The Truth

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Quarrelling Means Trying To Show That The Other Man Is In The Wrong. (and) There Is No Sense In Trying To Do That Unless You And He Had Some Sort Of Agreement As To What Righ And Wrong Are.

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

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The Very First Tear He Made Was So Deep That I Thought It Had Gone Right Into My Heart.

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.

I Think We Must Fully Face The Fact That When Christianity Does Not Make A Man Very Much Better, It Makes Him Very Much Worse... Conversion May Make Of One Who Was, If No Better, No Worse Than An Animal, Something Like A Devil.

The Essence Of Religion, In My View, Is The Thirst For An End Higher Than Natural Ends.

A Man Does Not Call A Line Crooked Unless He Has Some Idea Of A Straight Line.

You Can Give The Devil Too Much Or Too Little Attention.

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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.

Theology Offers You A Working Arrangement, Which Leaves The Scientist Free To Continue His Experiments And The Christian To Continue His Prayers.

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.

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

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

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

I Am Often, I Believe, Praying For Others When I Should Be Doing Things For Them. It's So Much Easier To Pray For A Bore Than To Go And See Him.

It Is Easy To Acknowledge, But Almost Impossible To Realize For Long, That We Are Mirrors Whose Brightness, If We Are Bright, Is Wholly Derived From The Sun That Shines Upon Us.

I Think Each Village Was Meant To Feel Pity For Its Own Sick And Poor Whom It Can Help And I Doubt If It Is The Duty Of Any Private Person To Fix His Mind On Ills Which He Cannot Help. This May Even Become An Escape From The Works Of Charity We Really Can Do To Those We Know. God May Call Any One Of Us To Respond To Some Far Away Problem Or Support Those Who Have Been So Called. But We Are Finite And He Will Not Call Us Everywhere Or To Support Every Worthy Cause. And Real Needs Are Not Far From Us.

The Old Field Of Space, Time, Matter, And The Senses Is To Be Weeded, Dug, And Sown For A New Crop. We May Be Tired Of That Old Field: God Is Not.

The Point Is That For Our Ancestors, The Universe Was A Picture; For Modern Physics It Is A Story.

If There Ever Was A Time That Nothing Existed, Then Nothing Would Exist Now

If You Are Worried About The People Outside, The Most Unreasonable Thing You Can Do Is Remain Outside Yourself. Christians Are Christ's Body...every Addition To That Body Enables Him To Do More. If You Want To Help Those Outside You Must Add Your Own Little Cell To The Body Of Christ Who Along Can Help Them. Cutting Off A Man's Fingers Would Be A Odd Way Of Getting Him To Do More Work.

Length Of Days With An Evil Heart Is Only Length Of Misery.

Unless Thought Is Valid We Have No Reason To Believe In The Real Universe.

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.

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

What Does Seem To Me Poisonous, What Breeds A Type Of Patriotism That Is Pernicious If It Lasts But Not Likely To Last Long In An Educated Adult, Is The Perfectly Serious Indoctrination Of The Young In Knowably False Or Biased History - The Heroic Legend Drably Disguised As Text-book Fact. With This Creeps In The Tacit Assumption That Other Nations Have Not Equally Their Heroes; Perhaps Even The Belief - Surely It Is Very Bad Biology - That We Can Literally 'inherit' Tradition.

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

In God There Is No Hunger That Needs To Be Filled, Only Plenteousness That Desires To Give.

I Am Suffering Incessant Temptations To Uncharitable Thoughts At Present; One Of Those Black Moods In Which Nearly All One's Friends Seem To Be Selfish Or Even False. And How Terrible That There Should Be Even A Kind Of Pleasure In Thinking Evil.

I Object To That Remark Very Strongly! - The Magician's Nephew

I Have Discovered, Passionate Grief Does Not Link Us With The Dead But Cuts Us Off From Them. This Becomes Clearer And Clearer. It Is Just At Those Moments When I Feel Least Sorrow - Getting Into My Morning Bath Is Usually One Of Them - That H. Rushes Upon My Mind In Her Full Reality, Her Otherness. Not, As In My Worst Moments, All Foreshortened And Patheticized And Solemnized By My Miseries, But As She Is In Her Own Right. This Is Good And Tonic.

Courtship Is The Time For Sowing Those Seeds Which Will Grow Up Ten Years Into Domestic Hatred.

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

I Do Not Think That All Who Choose Wrong Roads Perish; But Their Rescue Consists In Being Put Back On The Right Road.

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.

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

Every Christian Would Agree That A Man's Spiritual Health Is Exactly Proportional To His Love For God.

His Face Had Become Very Red And His Mouth And Fingers Were Sticky. He Did Not Look Either Clever Or Handsome, Whatever The Queen Might Say.

It Would Seem That Our Lord Finds Our Desires Not Too Strong, But Too Weak.

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.

In Your World, I Have Another Name. You Should Know Me By It.

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.

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

I Wrote This Story For You, But When I Began It I Had Not Realized That Girls Grow Quicker Than Books. As A Result You Are Already Too Old For Fairy Tales, And By The Time It Is Printed And Bound You Will Be Older Still. But Some Day You Will Be Old Enough To Start Reading Fairy Tales Again. You Can Then Take It Down From Some Upper Shelf, Dust It, And Tell Me What You Think Of It. I Shall Probably Be Too Deaf To Hear, And Too Old To Understand A Word You Say, But I Shall Still Be Your Affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.

The More We Let God Take Us Over, The More Truly Ourselves We Become - Because He Made Us. He Invented Us. He Invented All The Different People That You And I Were Intended To Be. . .it Is When I Turn To Christ, When I Give Up Myself To His Personality, That I First Begin To Have A Real Personality Of My Own.

God, Who Needs Nothing, Loves Into Existence Wholly Superfluous Creatures In Order That He May Love And Perfect Them.

The Value Of The Individual Does Not Lie In Him. He Receives It By Union With Christ.

Christian Principles Are, Admittedly, Stricter Than The Others; But Then We Think You Will Get Help Towards Obeying Them Which You Will Not Get Towards Obeying The Others.

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

If You Have A Religion It Must Be Cosmic.

It Takes All Sorts To Make A World; Or A Church. This May Be Even Truer Of A Church. If Grace Perfects Nature It Must Expand All Our Natures Into The Full Richness Of The Diversity Which God Intended When He Made Them, And Heaven Will Display Far More Variety Than Hell.

The Christian "doctrines" Are Translations Into Our Concepts And Ideas Of That Which God Has Already Expressed In Language More Adequate, Namely The Actual Incarnation, Crucifixion, And Resurrection

Meaningless Combinations Of Words Do Not Suddenly Acquire Meaning Simply Because We Prefix To Them The Two Other Words ' God Can'.

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.

I Came Alive When I Started Loving You.

[the Witch] Would Have Known That When A Willing Victim Who Had Committed No Treachery Was Killed In A Traitor’s Stead, The Table Would Crack And Death Itself Would Start Working Backwards.

Onward And Upward! To Narnia And The North!

Onward And Upward

The Notion That Everyone Would Like Christianity To Be True, And Therefore All Atheists Are Brave Men Who Have Accepted The Defeat Of All Their Deepest Desires, Is Simply Impudent Nonsense.

It Will Not Bother Me In The Hour Of Death To Reflect That I Have Been "had For A Sucker" By Any Number Of Imposters But It Would Be A Torment To Know That One Had Refused Even One Person In Need.

You Must Therefore Zealously Guard In His Mind The Curious Assumption 'my Time Is My Own'. Let Him Have The Feeling That He Starts Each Day As The Lawful Possessor Of Twenty-four Hours. Let Him Feel As A Grievous Tax That Portion Of This Property Which He Has To Make Over To Him Employers, And As A Generous Donation That Further Portion Which H Allows To Religious Duties. But What He Must Never Be Permitted To Doubt Is That The Total From Which These Deductions Have Been Made Was, In Some Mysterious Sense, His Own Personal Birthright.

Love, In The Christian Sense, Does Not Mean An Emotion. It Is A State Not Of The Feelings But Of The Will; That State Of The Will Which We Have Naturally About Ourselves, And Must Learn To Have About Other People.

If You Picture Time As A Straight Line Along Which We Have To Travel, Then You Must Think Of God As The Whole Page On Which The Line Is Drawn.

In Commanding Us To Glorify Him, God Is Inviting Us To Enjoy Him.

It Is After You Have Realized That There Is A Real Moral Law, And A Power Behind The Law, And That You Have Broken That Law And Put Yourself Wrong With That Power -- It Is After All This, And Not A Moment Sooner, That Christianity Begins To Talk.

Humans Are Very Seldom Either Totally Sincere Or Totally Hypocritical. Their Moods Change, Their Motives Are Mixed, And They Are Often Quite Mistaken As To What Their Motives Are.

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.

I Think It Very Wrong To Pray For People While They Are In Distress And Then Not To Continue Praying, Now With Thanksgiving, When They Are Relieved.

Why Should Your Heart Not Dance?

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

We Only Learn To Behave Ourselves In The Presence Of God.

Presence Of God

Literary Experience Heals The Wound, Without Undermining The Privilege, Of Individuality.

The Ancient Man Approached God (or Even The Gods)as The Accused Person Approaches His Judge. For The Modern Man The Roles Are Reversed. He Is The Judge: God Is In The Dock. He Is Quite A Kindly Judge: If God Should Have A Reasonable Defense For Being The God Who Permits War, Poverty, And Disease, He Is Ready To Listen To It. The Trial May Even End In God's Acquittal. But The Important Thing Is That Man Is On The Bench And God Is In The Dock.

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

To Please God… To Be A Real Ingredient In The Divine Happiness… To Be Loved By God, Not Merely Pitied, But Delighted In As An Artist Delights In His Work Or A Father In A Son- It Seems Impossible, A Weight Or Burden Of Glory Which Our Thoughts Can Hardly Sustain. But So It Is.

Holiness Is Irresistible. If Even 10% Of The World's Population Had It The Whole World Would Be Converted And Happy Before The Year's End.

Provocation Doesn't Make Me Ill-tempered: It Only Shows Me How Ill-tempered I Am.

The Real Problem Is Not Why Some Pious, Humble, Believing People Suffer, But Why Some Do Not.

How Monotonously Alike All The Great Tyrants And Conquerors Have Been: How Gloriously Different Are The Saints.

Falling In Love Is Something That Happens To Us, Being Is Love Is Something We Do. No Passion Is Self Preservatory.

Falling In Love

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.

The Promise, Made When I Am In Love, To Be True To The Beloved As Long As I Live, Commits Me To Being True Even If I Cease To Be In Love.

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.

Whenever All Men Are...hastening To Be Slaves Or Tyrants We Make Liberalism The Prime Bogey.

Screwtape Letters

There Are Far, Far Better Things Ahead Than Any We Leave Behind.

It Still Remains True That No Justification Of Virtue Will Enable A Man To Be Virtuous.

Each Day We Are Becoming A Creature Of Splendid Glory Or One Of Unthinkable Horror.

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."

Don't Think Of God In Terms Of Forms, Because Forms Are Limited And God Is Unlimited.

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

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

We Who Defend Christianity Find Ourselves Constantly Opposed Not By The Irreligion Of Our Headers But By Their Real Religion.

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

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

The Idea Which...shuts Out The Second Coming From Our Minds, The Idea Of The World Slowly Ripening To Perfection, Is A Myth, Not A Generalization From Experience.

An Unliterary Man May Be Defined As One Who Reads Books Once Only.

One Is Sometimes Glad Not To Be A Great Theologian; One Might Easily Mistake It For Being A Good Christian.

The Universe Rings True Whenever You Fairly Test It.

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.

I Would Say If A Man Is Going To Write On Chemistry, He Learns Chemistry. The Same Is True Of Christianity. But To Speak Of The Craft Itself, I Would Not Know How To Advise A Man How To Write. It Is A Matter Of Talent And Interest. I Believe He Must Be Strongly Moved If He Is To Become A Writer. Writing Is Like A 'lust,' Or Like 'scratching When You Itch.' Writing Comes As A Result Of A Very Strong Impulse, And When It Does Come, I For One Must Get It Out.

Make Your Choice, Adventurous Stranger, Strike The Bell And Bide The Danger, Or Wonder, Till It Drives You Mad, What Would Have Followed If You Had.

I Never Exactly Made A Book. It's Rather Like Taking Dictation. I Was Given Things To Say.

God Has Not Been Trying An Experiment On My Faith Or Love In Order To Find Out Their Quality. He Knew It Already. It Was I Who Didn't. In This Trial He Makes Us Occupy The Dock, The Witness Box, And The Bench All At Once. He Always Knew That My Temple Was A House Of Cards. His Only Way Of Making Me Realize The Fact Was To Knock It Down.

Hitherto The Plans Of The Educationalists Have Achieved Very Little Of What They Attempted, And Indeed We May Well Thank The Beneficent Obstinacy Of Real Mothers, Real Nurses, And (above All) Real Children For Preserving The Human Race In Such Sanity As It Still Possesses.

I Pray Because I Can't Help Myself. I Pray Because I'm Helpless. It Doesn't Change God - It Changes Me.

We Have Discovered That The Scheme Of 'outlawing War' Has Made War More Like An Outlaw Without Making It Less Frequent And That To Banish The Knight Does Not Alleviate The Suffering Of The Peasant.

Friendship Is Born At That Moment When One Man Says To Another: "what! You Too? I Thought That No One But Myself . . ."

Keep Clear Of Psychiatrists Unless You Know That They Are Also Christians. Otherwise They Start With The Assumption That Your Religion Is An Illusion And Try To 'cure' It: And This Assumption They Make Not As Professional Psychologists But As Amateur Philosophers.

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.

Child,' Said The Lion, 'i Am Telling You Your Story, Not Hers. No One Is Told Any Story But Their Own.

Oh, I'm A Dangerous Criminal, I Am,' Said The Dwarf Cheerfully.

I Gave In, And Admitted That God Was God.

Morality, Like Numinous Awe, Is A Jump; In It, Man Goes Beyond Anything That Can Be 'given' In The Facts Of Experience.

Do Not Let Us Mistake Necessary Evils For Good.

Every Uncorrected Error And Unrepented Sin Is, In Its Own Right, A Fountain Of Fresh Error And Fresh Sin Flowing On To The End Of Time.

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

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.

God Is Basic Fact. He Must Not Be Thought Of As A Featureless Generality. He Is The Most Concrete Thing There Is.

You Have Gone Into The Temple...and Found Him, As Always, There.

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.

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.

God, Who Foresaw Your Tribulation, Has Specially Armed You To Go Through It, Not Without Pain But Without Stain.

A Spoiled Saint, A Pharisee, An Inquisitor, Or A Magician, Makes Better Sport To Hell Than A Mere Common Tyrant Or Debauchee.

You Don't Have A Soul. You Are A Soul. You Have A Body.

When Humans Should Have Become As Perfect In Voluntary Obedience As The Inanimate Creation Is In Its Lifeless Obedience, Then They Will Put On Its Glory, Or Rather That Greater Glory Of Which Nature Is Only The First Sketch.

All The Things That Have Ever Deeply Possessed Your Soul Have Been But Hints Of It, Tantalizing Glimpses, Promises Never Quite Fulfilled, Echoes That Died Away Just As They Caught Your Ear. But If It Should Really Become Manifest - If There Ever Came An Echo That Did Not Die Away But Swelled Into The Sound Itself - You Would Know It. Beyond All Possibility Of Doubt You Would Say 'here At Last Is The Thing I Was Made For.'

Gone! ...and You And I Quite Crestfallen.

The Christians Are Right: It Is Pride Which Has Been The Chief Cause Of Misery In Every Nation And Every Family Since The World Began.

Your Real, New Self (which Is Christ's And Also Yours, And Yours Just Because It Is His) Will Not Come As Long As You Are Looking For It. It Will Come When You Are Looking For Him.

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.

Look For Christ And You Will Find Him, And With Him Everything Else Thrown In

Those Who Are Enjoying Something, Or Suffering Something, Together, Are Companions. Those Who Enjoy Or Suffer One Another, Are Not.

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.

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

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