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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.
-C. S. Lewis
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If God 'foresaw' Our

C. S. Lewis
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.
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A Work Of (whatever) Art Can Be Either 'received' Or 'used'. ...'using' Is Inferior To 'reception' Because Art, If Used Rather Than Received, Merely Facilitates, Brightens, Relieves Or Palliates Our Life, And Does Not Add To It ... When The Art In Question Is Literature A Complication Arises, For To 'receive' Significant Words Is Always, In One Sense, To 'use' Them, To Go Through And Beyond Them To An Imagined Something Which Is Not Itself Verbal.
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More Like The Real Thing,' Said The Lord Digory Softly. - The Last Battle
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God Lends Us A Little Of His Reasoning Powers And That Is How We Think: He Puts A Little Of His Love Into Us And That Is How We Love One Another. When You Teach A Child Writing, You Hold Its Hand While It Forms The Letters: That Is, It Forms The Letters Because You Are Forming Them. We Love And Reason Because God Loves And Reasons And Holds Our Hand While We Do It.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A World Of Nice People, Content In Their Own Niceness, Looking No Further, Turned Away From God, Would Be Just As Desperately In Need Of Salvation As A Miserable World-and Might Be Even More Difficult To Save.
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Every Poet And Musician And Artist, But For Grace">grace, Is Drawn Away From Love Of The Thing He Tells To Love Of The Telling Till, Down In Deep Hell, They Cannot Be Interested In God At All But Only In What They Say About Him.
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The Man Is A Humbug — A Vulgar, Shallow, Self-satisfied Mind, Absolutely Inaccessible To The Complexities And Delicacies Of The Real World. He Has The Journalist's Air Of Being A Specialist In Everything, Of Taking In All Points Of View And Being Always On The Side Of The Angels: He Merely Annoys A Reader Who Has The Least Experience Of Knowing Things, Of What Knowing Is Like. There Is Not Two Pence Worth Of Real Thought Or Real Nobility In Him. But He Isn't Dull.
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When The Author Walks On The Stage The Play Is Over. God Is Going To Invade, All Right...something So Beautiful To Some Of Us And So Terrible To Others That None Of Us Will Have Any Choice Left? For This Time It Will Be God Without Disguise...it Will Be Too Late Then To Choose Your Side. There Is No Use Saying You Choose To Lie Down When It Has Become Impossible To Stand Up.
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Play
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Christian
Humility
Self
We Have A Strange Illusion That Mere Time Cancels Sin.
Strange
Sin
Illusion
No Natural Feelings Are High Or Low, Holy Or Unholy, In Themselves. They Are All Holy When God's Hand Is On The Rein. They All Go Bad When They Set Up On Their Own And Make Themselves Into False Gods.
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Hands
Oh, Adam’s Sons, How Cleverly You Defend Yourselves Against All That Might Do You Good!
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Natural
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I Gave In, And Admitted That God Was God.
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World
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Christian
Groups
Said
It's Always Winter But It's Never Christmas.
Sadness
Winter
Misery
And As Jill Gazed At Its Motionless Bulk, She Realized That She Might As Well Have Asked The Whole Mountain To Move Aside For Her Convenience.
Moving
Mountain
Might
People Who Know A Lot Of The Same Things Can Hardly Help Talking About Them.
Talking
People
Helping
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.
Long
Feelings
Promise
Do Not Waste Time Bothering Whether You ‘love’ Your Neighbor; Act As If You Did. As Soon As We Do This We Find One Of The Great Secrets. When You Are Behaving As If You Loved Someone, You Will Presently Come To Love Him.
Love
Religious
Secret
Pooh! Grown-ups Are Always Thinking Of Uninteresting Explanations.
Thinking
Nephew
Explanation
It Is Natural For Us To Wish That God Had Designed For Us A Less Glorious And Less Arduous Destiny; But Then We Are Wishing Not For More Love But For Less.
Destiny
Wish
Natural
When I Was Ten, I Read Fairy Tales In Secret And Would Have Been Ashamed If I Had Been Found Doing So. Now That I Am Fifty, I Read Them Openly. When I Became A Man I Put Away Childish Things, Including The Fear Of Childishness And The Desire To Be Very Grown Up.
Fear
Children
Growing Up
But Do You Really Mean, Sir," Said Peter, "that There Could Be Other Worlds-all Over The Place, Just Round The Corner-like That?" "nothing Is More Probable," Said The Profesor, Taking Off His Spectacles And Beginning To Polish Them, While He Muttered To Himself, "i Wonder What They Do Teach Them At These Schools.
School
Mean
Other Worlds
Every Christian Would Agree That A Man's Spiritual Health Is Exactly Proportional To His Love For God.
Christian
Spiritual
Men
The Value Of Myth Is That It Takes All The Things You Know And Restores To Them The Rich Significance Which Has Been Hidden By The Veil Of Familiarity.
Veils
Rich
Myth
Truth And Falsehood Are Opposed; But Truth Is The Norm Not Of Truth Only But Of Falsehood Also.
Truth Is
Norm
Truth And Falsehood
Humanity Does Not Pass Through Phases As A Train Passes Through Stations: Being Alive, It Has The Privilege Of Always Moving Yet Never Leaving Anything Behind. Whatever We Have Been, In Some Sort We Are Still.
Moving
Leaving
Humanity
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
When We Want To Be Something Other Than The Thing That God Wants Us To Be, We Must Be Wanting What, In Fact, Will Not Make Us Happy...whether We Like It Or Not, God Intends To Give Us What We Need, Not What We Now Think We Want. Once More, We Are Embarrassed By The Intolerable Compliment, By Too Much Love, Not Too Little.
Thinking
Giving
Needs
I Do Not Think That All Who Choose Wrong Roads Perish; But Their Rescue Consists In Being Put Back On The Right Road.
Thinking
Rescue
Great Divorce
In Our Adversity, God Shouts To Us.
Adversity
Nothing Is Wonderful Except In The Abnormal, And Nothing Is Abnormal Until We Have Grasped The Norm.
Abnormal
Wonderful
Norm
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
In Coming To Understand Anything We Are Rejecting The Facts As They Are For Us In Favour Of The Facts As They Are.
Facts
Favour
Insight
We Delight To Praise What We Enjoy Because The Praise Not Merely Expresses But Completes The Enjoyment; It Is Its Appointed Consummation. It Is Not Out Of Compliment That Lovers Keep On Telling One Another How Beautiful They Are; The Delight Is Incomplete Till It Is Expressed.
Beautiful
Delight
Lovers
Be Confident Small Immortals. You Are Not The Only Voice That All Things Utter, Nor Is There Eternal Silence In The Places Where You Cannot Come.
Voice
Silence
Be Confident
Freedom Always Comes With A Price.
You Have A Traitor There, Aslan," Said The Witch. Of Course Everyone Present Knew That She Meant Edmund. But Edmund Had Got Past Thinking About Himself After All He'd Been Through And After The Talk He'd Had That Morning. He Just Went On Looking At Aslan. It Didn't Seem To Matter What The Witch Said.
Morning
Past
Thinking
God, In The End, Gives People What They Most Want, Including Freedom From Himself. What Could Be More Fair?
Christian
People
Giving
And This Is The Marvel Of Marvels; That He Called Me Beloved.
Beloved
Friendship Is The Instrument By Which God Reveals To Each Of Us The Beauties Of Others.
Instruments
Mercy Detached From Justice Grows Unmerciful.
Justice
Mercy
Grows
He (the Devil) Always Sends Errors Into The World In Pairs--pairs Of Opposites...he Relies On Your Extra Dislike Of One To Draw You Gradually Into The Opposite One. But Do Not Let Us Be Fooled. We Have To Keep Our Eyes On The Goal And Go Straight Through Between Both Errors. We Have No Other Concern Than That With Either Of Them.
Religious
Couple
Eye
If One Has To Choose Between Reading The New Books And Reading The Old, One Must Choose The Old: Not Because They Are Necessarily Better But Because They Contain Precisely Those Truths Of Which Our Own Age Is Neglectful.
Book
Reading
Age
And The Seriousness With Which The Other Party Takes My Words Always Raises The Doubt Whether I Have Taken Them Seriously Enough Myself.
Party
Taken
Doubt
Did I Hate Him, Then? Indeed, I Believe So. A Love Like That Can Grow To Be Nine-tenths Hatred And Still Call Itself Love.
Hate
Believe
Hatred
Puddleglum's My Name. But It Doesn't Matter If You Forget It. I Can Always Tell You Again.
Names
Matter
Forget
Selfishness Has Never Been Admired.
Selfishness
Some Day You Will Be Old Enough To Start Reading Fairy Tales Again.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
What Can You Ever Really Know Of Other People's Souls — Of Their Temptations, Their Opportunities, Their Struggles? One Soul In The Whole Of Creation You Do Know: And It Is The Only One Whose Fate Is Placed In Your Hands. If There Is A God, You Are, In A Sense, Alone With Him.
Struggle
Fate
Opportunity
They Open A Door And Enter A World
Doors
World
Everyone Feels Benevolent If Nothing Happens To Be Annoying Him At The Moment.
Annoying
Moments
Feels
[the Natural Life] Knows That If The Spiritual Life Gets Hold Of It, All Its Self-centredness And Self-will Are Going To Be Killed And It Is Ready To Fight Tooth And Nail To Avoid That.
Spiritual
Fighting
Self
Friendship (as The Ancients Saw) Can Be A School Of Virtue, But Also (as They Did Not See) A School Of Vice. It Is Ambivalent. It Makes Good Men Better And Bad Men Worse.
School
Men
Good Man
When They Have Really Learned To Love Their Neighbours As Themselves, They Will Be Allowed To Love Themselves As Their Neighbours.
Screwtape Letters
Neighbour
Even In This World Of Course It Is The Stupidest Children Who Are Most Childish And The Stupidest Grown-ups Who Are Most Grown-up.
Children
World
Stupidest
There Is One Bit Of Advice Given Us By The Ancient Greeks, And By The Jews In The Old Testament, And By The Great Christian Teachers Of The Middle Ages, Which The Modern Economic System Has Completely Disobeyed. All These People Told Us Not To Lend Money At Interest; And Lending Money At Interest - What We Call Investment - Is The Basis Of Our Whole System.
Christian
Teacher
People
I Sometimes Wonder Whether All Pleasures Are Not Substitutes For Joy.
Inspirational
Joy
Sometimes
A Thing May Be Morally Neutral And Yet The Desire For That Thing May Be Dangerous.
Desire
May
Dangerous
Every Natural Love Will Rise Again And Live Forever In This Country: But None Will Rise Again Until It Has Been Buried.
Inspirational
Country
Religious
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.
Christian
Atheist
Mistake
Thirst Was Made For Water. Inquiry For Truth.
Inspirational
Water
Inquiry
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.
Mean
Men
Trying
Love As Distinct From "being In Love" Is Not Merely A Feeling. It Is A Deep Unity, Maintained By The Will And Deliberately Strengthened By Habit.
Being In Love
Love Is
Feelings
Christ Did Not Die For Man Because They Were Intrinsically Worth Dying For, But Because He Is Intrinsically Love, And Therefore Loves Infinitely.
Men
Miracle
Dying
The Very Man Who Has Argued You Down, Will Sometimes Be Found, Years Later, To Have Been Influenced By What You Said
Men
Years
Sometimes
Look For The Valleys, The Green Places, And Fly Through Them. There Will Always Be A Way Through.
Valleys
Looks
Green
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
That World Is Ended, As If It Had Never Been. Let The Race Of Adam And Eve Take Warning.
Race
Warning
World
Do I Think Well Of Myself, Think Myself A Nice Chap? Well, I Am Afraid I Sometimes Do (and Those Are, No Doubt, My Worst Moments).
Nice
Thinking
Worst Moments
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.
Motivational
Mistake
Sleep
The Lost Enjoy Forever The Horrible Freedom They Have Demanded.
Forever
Lost
Enjoy
Pain Is God's Megaphone To Rouse A Deaf World.
Christian
Pain
World
Lucy Went First, Biting Her Lip And Trying Not To Say All The Things She Thought Of Saying To Susan. But She Forgot Them When She Fixed Her Eyes On Aslan.
Eye
Trying
Biting
Every Day In A Life Fills The Whole Life With Expectations And Memory.
Memories
Expectations
Whole Life
Hell Is A State Of Mind -- Ye Never Said A Truer Word. And Every State Of Mind, Left To Itself, Every Shutting Up Of The Creature Within The Dungeon Of Its Own Mind -- Is, In The End, Hell. But Heaven Is Not A State Of Mind. Heaven Is Reality Itself. All That Is Fully Real Is Heavenly.
Real
Heaven
Mind
The Worldly Man Treats Certain People Kindly Because He 'likes' Them: The Christian, Trying To Treat Every One Kindly, Finds Him Liking More And More People As He Goes On - Including People He Could Not Even Have Imagined Himself Liking At The Beginning.
Christian
Men
People
Q. What Is Your View Of The Daily Discipline Of The Christian Life - The Need For Taking Time To Be Alone With God? Lewis: "we Have Our New Testament Regimental Orders Upon The Subject. I Would Take It For Granted That Everyone Who Becomes A Christian Would Undertake This Practice. It Is Enjoined Upon Us By Our Lord; And Since They Are His Commands, I Believe In Following Them. It Is Always Just Possible That Jesus Christ Meant What He Said When He Told Us To Seek The Secret Place And To Close The Door.
Christian
Jesus
Believe
To Love You As I Should, I Must Worship God As Creator. When I Have Learnt To Love God Better Than My Earthly Dearest, I Shall Love My Earthly Dearest Better Than I Do Now. In So Far As I Learn To Love My Earthly Dearest At The Expense Of God And Instead Of God, I Shall Be Moving Towards The State In Which I Shall Not Love My Earthly Dearest T All. When First Things Are Put First, Second Things Are Not Suppressed Bu Increased.
Moving
Love You
Firsts
If The Whole Universe Has No Meaning, We Should Never Have Found Out That It Has No Meaning: Just As, If There Were No Light In The Universe And Therefore No Creatures With Eyes, We Should Never Know It Was Dark. Dark Would Be Without Meaning.
Wisdom
Eye
Dark
It Is Not Enough To Want To Get Rid Of One’s Sins, We Also Need To Believe In The One Who Saves Us From Our Sins.
Believe
Needs
Want
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.
Real
One Day
Truth Is
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.
Real
Law
Broken
When The Time Comes To You At Which You Will Be Forced At Last To Utter The Speech Which Has Lain At The Center Of Your Soul For Years, Which You Have, All That Time, Idiot-like, Been Saying Over And Over, You'll Not Talk About The Joy Of Words. I Saw Well Why The Gods Do Not Speak To Us Openly, Nor Let Us Answer. Till That Word Can Be Dug Out Of Us, Why Should They Hear The Babble That We Think We Mean? How Can They Meet Us Face To Face Till We Have Faces?
Mean
Thinking
Years
Tea Should Be Taken In Solitude.
Taken
Solitude
Tea
Many Things Have Gone Wrong With The World That God Made And... God Insists, And Insists Very Loudly, On Our Putting Them Right Again
Gone
World
Made
Love Is More Than An Emotion, It Is A Decision.
Love Is
Decision
Emotion
The Prayer Preceding All Prayers Is 'may It Be The Real I Who Speaks. May It Be The Real Thou That I Speak To.'
Prayer
Real
May
As Image And Apprehension Are In Organic Unity, So, For A Christian, Are Human Body And Human Soul.
Christian
Soul
Unity
Mere Improvement Is Not Redemption, Though Redemption Always Improves People
People
Redemption
Improvement
Why Love, If Losing Hurts So Much? I Have No Answers Anymore: Only The Life I Have Lived. Twice In That Life I've Been Given The Choice: As A Boy And As A Man. The Boy Chose Safety, The Man Chooses Suffering. The Pain Now Is Part Of The Happiness Then. That's The Deal.
Hurt
Pain
Boys
Christ Offers Something For Nothing: He Even Offers Everything For Nothing.
Christ
Offers
Once In Those Very Early Days My Brother Brought Into The Nursery The Lid Of A Biscuit Tin Which He Had Covered With Moss And Garnished With Twigs And Flowers So As To Make It A Toy Garden Or A Toy Forest. That Was The First Beauty I Ever Knew. What The Real Garden Had Failed To Do, The Toy Garden Did. It Made Me Aware Of Nature-not, Indeed, As A Storehouse Of Forms And Colors But As Something Cool, Dewy, Fresh, Exuberant....as Long As I Live My Imagination Of Paradise Will Retain Something Of My Brother's Toy Garden.
Happiness
Brother
Real
You Can Do More With A Castle In A Story Than With The Best Cardboard Castle That Ever Stood On A Nursery Table.
Nurse
Castles
Stories
There Was A Boy Called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, And He Almost Deserved It.
Humorous
Kids
Boys
The Best Fruits Are Plucked For Each By Some Hand That Is Not His Own.
Hands
Fruit
The Humans Live In Time But Our Enemy (god) Destines Them For Eternity.
Time
Enemy
Screwtape Letters
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.
Believe
Luxury
Giving
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
How Monotonously Alike All The Great Tyrants And Conquerors Have Been: How Gloriously Different Are The Saints.
Tyrants
Different
Saint
Besides Reasoning About Matters Of Fact, Men Also Make Moral Judgements.
Men
Miracle
Matter
After An Error You Need Not Only To Remove The Causes But Also To Correct The Error Itself: After A Sin You Must Not Only, If Possible, Remove The Temptation, You Must Also Go Back And Repent The Sin Itself. In Each Case An 'undoing' Is Required.
Errors
Temptation
Needs
If Only This Toothache Would Go Away, I Could Write Another Chapter On The Problem Of Pain.
Pain
Writing
Interesting
I Have Discovered That The People Who Believe Most Strongly In The Next Life Do The Most Good In The Present One.
Life
Believe
People
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.
Real
Justice
Mixtures
The Discomfiture We Feel May Be Our Most Accurate Human Sensation; Reminding Us We Are Not Quite "at Home" Here.
Home
May
Accurate
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
Here Are Beauties Which Pierce Like Swords Or Burn Like Cold Iron. Here Is A Book [the Lord Of The Rings] Which Will Break Your Heart."
Book
Heart
Iron
Shall I Ever Be Able To Read That Story Again; The One I Couldn't Remember? Will You Tell It To Me, Aslan? Oh Do,do,do." "indeed,yes, I Will Tell It To You For Years And Years. But Now, Come. We Must Meet The Master Of This House.
Years
House
Stories
Almost Certainly God Is Not In Time. His Life Does Not Consist Of Moments One Following Another...ten-thirty-- And Every Other Moment From The Beginning Of The World--is Always Present For Him. If You Like To Put It This Way, He Has All Eternity In Which To Listen To The Split Second Of Prayer Put Up By A Pilot As His Plane Crashes In Flames.
Prayer
Flames
Doe
Your Patient Has Become Humble; Have You Drawn His Attention To The Fact? All Virtues Are Less Formidable To Us Once The Man Is Aware That He Has Them, But This Is Specially True Of Humility.
Humble
Humility
Pride
The Proper Motto Is Not Be Good, Sweet Maid, And Let Who Can Be Clever, But Be Good Sweet Maid, And Don't Forget That This Involves Being As Clever As You Can. God Is No Fonder Of Intellectual Slackers Than Any Other Slackers.
Sweet
Clever
Intellectual
Aren't All These Notes The Senseless Writings Of A Man Who Won't Accept The Fact That There Is Nothing We Can Do With Suffering Except To Suffer It?
Writing
Men
Suffering
I Have Seen Great Beauty Of Spirit In Some Who Were Great Sufferers. I Have Seen Men, For The Most Part, Grow Better Not Worse With Advancing Years, And I Have Seen The Last Illness Produce Treasures Of Fortitude And Meekness From Most Unpromising Subjects.
Men
Years
Treasure
How Could An Idiotic Universe Have Produced Creatures Whose Mere Dreams Are So Much Stronger, Better, Subtler Than Itself?
Dream
Stronger
Idiotic
You Thought You Were Being Made Into A Decent Little Cottage But He Is Building A Palace. He Intends To Come & Live In It Himself
Cottages
Littles
Palaces
Man Must Endure His Going Hence.
Tombstone
Men
Endure
To The Ancients, Friendship Seemed The Happiest And Most Fully Human Of All Loves... The Modern World In Comparison, Ignores It.
World
Modern
Humans
The Very Nature Of Joy Makes Nonsense Of Our Common Distinction Between Having And Wanting.
Joy
Common
Nonsense
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.
Art
Thinking
Imagination
Not To Be, But To Seem, Virtuous - It Is A Formula Whose Utility We All Discovered In The Nursery.
Deception
Nursery
Virtuous
Much Of The Modern Resistance To Chastity Comes From Men's Belief That They 'own' Their Bodies—those Vast And Perilous Estates, Pulsating With The Energy That Made The Worlds, In Which They Find Themselves Without Their Consent And From Which They Are Ejected At The Pleasure Of Another!
Men
Energy
World
A Recovery Of The Old Sense Of Sin Is Essential To Christianity. Christ Takes It For Granted That Men Are Bad. Until We Really Feel This Assumption Of His To Be True, Though We Are Part Of The World He Came To Save, We Are Not Part Of The Audience To Whom His Words Are Addressed.
Recovery
Men
Essentials
Poetry Most Often Communicates Emotions, Not Directly, But By Creating Imaginatively The Grounds For Those Emotions. It Therefore Communicates Something More Than The Emotion; Only By Means Of That Something More Does It Communicate The Emotion At All.
Mean
Creating
Doe
Do Not Be Deceived, Wormwood. Our Cause Is Never More In Danger Than When A Human, No Longer Desiring, But Still Intending, To Do Our Enemy's Will, Looks Round Upon A Universe From Which Every Trace Of Him Seems To Have Vanished, And Asks Why He Has Been Forsaken, And Still Obeys.
Enemy
Looks
Letters
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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