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

C. S. Lewis
In Any Fairly Large And Talkative Community Such As A University There Is Always The Danger That Those Who Think Alike Should Gravitate Together Where They Will Henceforth Encounter Opposition Only In The Emasculated Form Of Rumour That The Outsiders Say Thus And Thus. The Absent Are Easily Refuted, Complacent Dogmatism Thrives, And Differences Of Opinion Are Embittered By The Group Hostility. Each Group Hears Not The Best, But The Worst, That The Other Group Can Say.
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Topic
Wisdom
Thinking
Differences
More From C. S. Lewis
Novelty May Fix Our Attention Not Even On The Service But On The Celebrant. You Know What I Mean. Try As One May To Exclude It, The Question "what On Earth Is He Up To Now?" Will Intrude. It Lays One's Devotion Waste. There Is Really Some Excuse For The Man Who Said, "i Wish They'd Remember That The Charge To Peter Was Feed My Sheep; Not Try Experiments On My Rats, Or Even, Teach My Performing Dogs New Tricks.
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To What Will You Look For Help If You Will Not Look To That Which Is Stronger Than Yourself?
Religion
Stronger
Looks
If Religion Does Not Make Us Better People, It Will Make Us Very Much Worse. And Of All The Bad Men Who Have Lived, The Religious "bad Man" Is The Worst Of All.
Religious
Men
People
The Typical Expression Of Opening Friendship Would Be Something Like, 'what? You Too? I Thought I Was The Only One!
Expression
Typical
Would Be
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.
Kings
Cutting
Mind
There Is Wishful Thinking In Hell As Well As On Earth.
Thinking
Earth
Screwtape Letters
If One Is Only To Talk From First-hand Experience, Conversation Would Be A Very Poor Business.
Wisdom
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Where, Except In The Present, Can The Eternal Be Met?
Mets
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People Talk As If Grief Were Just A Feeling -- As If It Weren't The Continually Renewed Shock Of Setting Out Again And Again On Familiar Roads And Being Brought Up Short By The Grim Frontier Post That Now Blocks Them.
Block
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People
Can A Mortal Ask Questions Which God Finds Unanswerable? Quite Easily, I Should Think. All Nonsense Questions Are Unanswerable. How Many Hours Are In A Mile? Is Yellow Square Or Round? Probably Half The Questions We Ask - Half Our Great Theological And Metaphysical Problems - Are Like That.
Thinking
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Yellow
Thus We Have Now For Many Centuries Triumphed Over Nature To The Extent Of Making Certain Secondary Characteristics Of The Male (such As The Beard) Disagreeable To Nearly All The Females—and There Is More In That Than You Might Suppose.
Males
Female
Might
It Still Remains True That No Justification Of Virtue Will Enable A Man To Be Virtuous.
Wisdom
Men
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I Have Come," Said A Deep Voice Behind Them. They Turned And Saw The Lion Himself, So Bright And Real And Strong That Everything Else Began At Once To Look Pale And Shadowy Compared With Him.
Strong
Real
Voice
True Friends Don’t Spend Time Gazing Into Each Other’s Eyes. They May Show Great Tenderness Towards Each Other But They Face In The Same Direction - Toward Common Projects, Goals - Above All, Towards A Common Lord.
True Friend
Eye
Goal
The Return From The Walk, And The Arrival Of Tea, Should Be Exactly Coincident, And Not Later Than A Quarter Past Four.
Past
Tea
Four
A Tyrannous And Gluttonous Demand For Affection Can Be A Horrible Thing. But In Ordinary Life No One Calls A Child Selfish Because It Turns For Comfort To Its Mother; Nor An Adult Who Turns To His Fellow "for Company." Those, Whether Children Or Adults, Who Do So Least Are Not Usually The Most Selfless.
Mother
Children
Selfish
It's So Much Easier To Pray For A Bore Than To Go And See One.
Inspirational
Prayer
Literature
If We Discover A Desire Within Us That Nothing In This World Can Satisfy, Also We Should Begin To Wonder If Perhaps We Were Created For Another World.
Desire
Ministry
World
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
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
I Gave In, And Admitted That God Was God.
God
Atheist
Literature
[god] Will Not Be Used As A Convenience. Men Or Nations Who Think They Can Revive The Faith In Order To Make A Good Society Might Just As Well Think They Can Use The Stairs Of Heaven As A Shortcut To The Nearest Chemist's Shop.
Faith
Men
Thinking
Dearest Daughter. I Knew You Would Not Be Long In Coming To Me. Joy Shall Be Yours.
Daughter
Long
Joy
This Is Where Men, Even The Trustiest, Fail Us. Their Heart Is Never So Wholly Given To Any Matter But That Some Trifle Of A Meal, Or A Drink, Or A Sleep, Or A Joke, Or A Girl, May Come In Between Them And It, And Then (even If You Are A Queen) You'll Get No More Good Out Of Them Until They've Had Their Way.
Girl
Queens
Heart
That's The Worst Of Girls," Said Edmund To Peter And The Dwarf. "they Never Can Carry A Map In Their Heads." "that's Because Our Heads Have Something Inside Them," Said Lucy.
Girl
Dwarves
Maps
Autumn Is Really The Best Of The Seasons; And I'm Not Sure That Old Age Isn't The Best Part Of Life.
Autumn
Age
Aging
Growing Maturity Is Marked By The Increasing Liberties We Take With Our Travelling... We Made The Discovery (some People Never Make It) That Real Books Can Be Taken On A Journey And That Hours Of Golden Reading Can So Be Added To Its Other Delights.
Real
Book
Taken
She Did Not Shut It Properly Because She Knew That It Is Very Silly To Shut Oneself Into A Wardrobe, Even If It Is Not A Magic One.
Silly
Magic
Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe
Write About What Really Interests You, Whether It Is Real Things Or Imaginary Things, And Nothing Else. (notice This Means That If You Are Interested Only In Writing You Will Never Be A Writer, Because You Will Have Nothing To Write About...)
Real
Writing
Mean
Once A Man Is United To God, How Could He Not Live Forever?
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The First Action To Be Taken Is To Pull Ourselves Together. If We Are Going To Be Destroyed By An Atomic Bomb, Let That Bomb, When It Comes, Find Us Doing Sensible And Human Things -- Praying, Working, Teaching, Reading, Listening To Music, Bathing The Children, Playing Tennis, Chatting To Our Friends Over A Pint And A Game Of Darts -- Not Huddled Together Like Frightened Sheep And Thinking About Bombs.
Children
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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. His Increasing Reputation, His Widening Circle Of Acquaintances, His Sense Of Importance, The Growing Pressure Of Absorbing And Agreeable Work Build Up In Him A Sense Of Being Really At Home On Earth Which Is Just What We Want.
Home
Men
Circles
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.
Real
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Long
To Live His Life In His Own Way, To Call His House His Castle, To Enjoy The Fruits Of His Own Labour, To Educate His Children As His Conscience Directs, To Save For Their Prosperity After His Death -- These Are Wishes Deeply Ingrained In Civilised Man. Their Realization Is Almost As Necessary To Our Virtues As To Our Happiness. From Their Total Frustration Disastrous Results Both Moral And Psychological Might Follow.
Wisdom
Children
Men
Evil Comes From The Abuse Of Free Will
Evil
Abuse
Free Will
We Never Find Out The Strength Of The Evil Impulse Inside Us Until We Try To Fight It.
Fighting
Evil
Trying
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?
Grief
Circles
Phases
Your Place In Heaven Will Seem To Be Made For You And You Alone, Because You Were Made For It.
Heaven
Made
Seems
The Perfect Church Service Would Be One We Were Almost Unaware Of. Our Attention Would Have Been On God.
Church Service
Perfect
Would Be
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.
Children
Writing
Thinking
In My Experience, It Is Affection That Creates This Taste, Teaching Us First To Notice, Then To Endure, Then To Smile At, Then To Enjoy, And Finally To Appreciate The People Who 'happen To Be There.' Made For Us? Thank God, No. They Are Themselves, Odder Than You Could Have Believed And Worth Far More Than We Guessed.
Teaching
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Now Sir, Said The Bulldog In His Business-like Way. 'are You A Animal, Vegetable, Or Mineral?' - The Magician's Nephew
Animal
Vegetables
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Regarding The Debate About Faith And Works: It's Like Asking Which Blade In A Pair Of Scissors Is Most Important.
Faith
Wisdom
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The Unhistorical Are Usually, Without Knowing It, Enslaved To A Fairly Recent Past.
Past
Knowing
Recent Past
Post-christian Man Is Not The Same As Pre-christian Man. He Is As Far Removed As Virgin Is From Widow: There Is Nothing In Common Except Want Of A Spouse: But There Is A Great Difference Between A Spouse-to-be And A Spouse Lost.
Christian
Men
Differences
Only The Skilled Can Judge The Skillfulness, But That Is Not The Same As Judging The Value Of The Result.
Skills
Judging
Results
Atheists Express Their Rage Against God Although In Their View He Does Not Exist.
Atheist
Views
Christian Inspirational
A Universe Whose Only Claim To Be Believed In Rests On The Validity Of Inference Must Not Start Telling Us The Inference Is Invalid.
Atheist
Atheism
Inference
For A Long Time I Used To Think This A Silly, Straw-splitting Distinction: How Could You Hate What A Man Did And Not Hate The Man? But Years Later It Occurred To Me That There Was One Man To Whom I Had Been Doing This All My Life - Namely Myself.
Hate
Silly
Men
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
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When Catholicism Goes Bad It Becomes The Religion Of Amulets And Holy Places And Priestcraft: Protestantism, In Its Corresponding Decay, Becomes A Vague Mist Of Ethical Platitudes
Decay
Holy Places
Amulets
For Pride Is Spiritual Cancer: It Eats Up The Very Possibility Of Love, Or Contentment, Or Even Common Sense.
Spiritual
Cancer
Pride
And So Take Away His Work, Which Was His Life [. . .] And All His Glory And His Great Deeds? Make A Child And A Dotard Of Him? Keep Him To Myself At That Cost? Make Him So Mine That He Was No Longer His?
Children
Cost
Deeds
Would It Not Be Better To Be Dead Than To Have This Horrible Fear That Aslan Has Come And Is Not Like The Aslan We Have Believed In And Longed For? It Is As If The Sun Rose One Day And Were A Black Sun.
Rose
Black
One Day
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
The Process Of Living Seems To Consist In Coming To Realize Truths So Ancient And Simple That, If Stated, They Sound Like Barren Platitudes.
Simple
Sound
Realizing
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
One Can Regard The Moral Law As An Illusion, And So Cut Himself Off From The Common Ground Of Humanity.
Cutting
Law
Humanity
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.
Beautiful
Lying
Play
When I Became A Man I Put Away Childish Things, Including The Fear Of Childishness And The Desire To Be Very Grown Up.
Growing Up
Fear
Healing
You Must Ask For God's Help. Even When You Have Done So, It May Seem To You For A Long Time That No Help, Or Less Help Than You Need, Is Being Given. Never Mind. After Each Failure, Ask Forgiveness, Pick Yourself Up, And Try Again. Very Often What God First Helps Us Towards Is Not The Virtue Itself But Just This Power Of Always Trying Again.
Always Trying
Long
Mind
Pain Is God's Megaphone To Rouse A Deaf World.
Christian
Pain
World
Poetry Too Is A Little Incarnation, Giving Body To What Had Been Before Invisible And Inaudible.
Wisdom
Giving
Body
If Nothing In This World Satisfies Me, Perhaps It Is Because I Was Made For Another World.
World
Made
Ifs
Safe?” Said Mr. Beaver; “don’t You Hear What Mrs. Beaver Tells You? Who Said Anything About Safe? ‘course He Isn’t Safe. But He’s Good. He’s The King, I Tell You.
Kings
Safe
Narnia
One Of The Marks Of A Certain Type Of Bad Man Is That He Cannot Give Up A Thing Himself Without Wanting Everyone Else To Give It Up.
Giving Up
Men
Type
The Door On Which We Have Been Knocking All Our Lives Will Open At Last.
Inspirational
Doors
Lasts
A Silly Idea Is Current That Good People Do Not Know What Temptation Means. This Is An Obvious Lie. Only Those Who Try To Resist Temptation Know How Strong It Is... A Man Who Gives In To Temptation After Five Minutes Simply Does Not Know What It Would Have Been Like An Hour Later. That Is Why Bad People, In One Sense, Know Very Little About Badness. They Have Lived A Sheltered Life By Always Giving In.
Motivational
Strong
Lying
We Come To Scripture Not To Learn A Subject But To Steep Ourselves In A Person.
Scripture
Persons
Subjects
Good Philosophy Must Exist, If For No Other Reason, Because Bad Philosophy Needs To Be Answered.
Philosophy
Needs
Reason
They Have Chosen Cunning Instead Of Belief. Their Prison Is Only In Their Minds, Yet They Are In That Prison; And So Afraid Of Being Taken In That They Cannot Be Taken Out.
Taken
Mind
Belief
Not To Be, But To Seem, Virtuous - It Is A Formula Whose Utility We All Discovered In The Nursery.
Deception
Nursery
Virtuous
Well, Whatever They Say, You Don't Feel Like Ghosts.
Ghost
Wells
Feels
To Live In A Fully Predictable World Is Not To Be A Man.
Men
World
Be A Man
We Read To Know We Are Not Alone.
Reading
Lovely
Knows
When Catholicism Goes Bad It Becomes The World-old, World-wide Religio Of Amulets And Holy Places And Priestcraft. Protestantism,in Its Corresponding Decay, Becomes A Vague Mist Of Ethical Platitudes. Catholicism Is Accused Of Being Too Much Like All The Other Religions; Protestantism Of Being Insufficiently Like A Religion At All. Hence Plato, With His Transcendent Forms, Is The Doctor Of Protestants; Aristotle, With His Immanent Forms, The Doctor Of Catholics.
Plato
Doctors
Catholic
How Monotonously Alike All The Great Tyrants And Conquerors Have Been: How Gloriously Different Are The Saints.
Tyrants
Different
Saint
Ink Is The Great Cure For All Human Ills.
Ink
Cures
Humans
Most People Spend Most Of Their Lives Doing Neither What They Want To Be Doing Nor What They Ought To Be Doing.
People
Want
Ought
The Beauty Of Life, Is That You Don't Have To Be Modernly Beautiful To Live It.
Beautiful
Life Is
Beauty Of Life
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.
Views
Hands
Serious
I Desired Dragons With A Profound Desire.
Dragons
Profound
Desire
The Modern Idea Of A Great Man Is One Who Stands At The Lonely Extremity Of Some Single Line Of Development--
Lonely
Men
Ideas
Don't Say It Was "delightful"; Make Us Say "delightful" When We've Read The Description.
Writing
Description
Delightful
The Fact That Our Heart Yearns For Something Earth Can't Supply Is Proof That Heaven Must Be Our Home.
Home
Heart
Heaven
‎"don't Bother Too Much About Your Feelings. When They Are Humble, Loving, Brave, Give Thanks For Them; When They Are Conceited, Selfish, Cowardly, Ask To Have Them Altered. In Neither Case Are They You, But Only A Thing That Happens To You. What Matters Is Your Intentions And Your Behavior
Selfish
Humble
Conceited
When Christ Died, He Died For You Individually Just As Much As If You Had Been The Only Person In The World.
Inspirational
World
Christ
I Pray Because I Can't Help Myself. I Pray Because I'm Helpless. It Doesn't Change God - It Changes Me.
Helping
Praying
Because I Can
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
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
Faces
For The Power Of Man To Make Himself What He Pleases Means... The Power Of Some Men To Make Other Men What They Please.
Mean
Men
Please
Man Approaches God Most Nearly When He Is In One Sense Least Like God. For What Can Be More Unlike Than Fullness And Need, Sovereignty And Humility, Righteousness And Penitence, Limitless Power And A Cry For Help?
Humility
Men
Needs
But How Can The Characters In A Play Guess The Plot? We Are Not The Playwright, We Are Not The Producer, We Are Not Even The Audience. We Are On The Stage. To Play Well The Scenes In Which We Are "on" Concerns Us Much More Than To Guess About The Scenes That Follow It.
Character
Play
Plot
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
I Never See Why We Should Do Anything Unless It Is Either A Duty Or A Pleasure! Life's Short Enough Without Filling Up Hours Unnecessarily
Filling Up
Hours
Enough
I'm Not Sure God Wants Us To Be Happy. I Think He Wants Us To Love, And Be Loved. But We Are Like Children, Thinking Our Toys Will Make Us Happy And The Whole World Is Our Nursery. Something Must Drive Us Out Of That Nursery And Into The Lives Of Others, And That Something Is Suffering.
Children
Thinking
Suffering
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.
Atheist
Night
England
To Love At All Is To Be Vulnerable. Love Anything And Your Heart Will Be Wrung And Possibly Broken. If You Want To Make Sure Of Keeping It Intact You Must Give It To No One, Not Even An Animal. Wrap It Carefully Round With Hobbies And Little Luxuries; Avoid All Entanglements. Lock It Up Safe In The Casket Or Coffin Of Your Selfishness. But In That Casket, Safe, Dark, Motionless, Airless, It Will Change. It Will Not Be Broken; It Will Become Unbreakable, Impenetrable, Irredeemable. To Love Is To Be Vulnerable.
Love
Inspirational
Broken Heart
Something Quite Unexpected Has Happened. It Came This Morning Early. For Various Reasons, Not In Themselves At All Mysterious, My Heart Was Lighter Than It Had Been For Many Weeks. ... And Suddenly, At The Very Moment When, So Far, I Mourned H. Least, I Remembered Her Best. Indeed It Was Something (almost) Better Than Memory; An Instantaneous, Unanswerable Impression. To Say It Was Like A Meeting Would Be Going Too Far. Yet There Was That In It Which Tempts One To Use Those Words. It Was As Though The Lifting Of The Sorrow Removed A Barrier.
Morning
Memories
Heart
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
It Is Usual To Speak In A Playfully Apologetic Tone About One's Adult Enjoyment Of What Are Called 'children's Books.' I Think The Convention A Silly One. No Book Is Really Worth Reading At The Age Of Ten Which Is Not Equally (and Often Far More) Worth Reading At The Age Of Fifty-except, Of Course, Books Of Information. The Only Imaginative Works We Ought To Grow Out Of Are Those Which It Would Have Been Better Not To Have Read At All. A Mature Palate Will Probably Not Much Care For Crème De Menthe: But It Ought Still To Enjoy Bread And Butter And Honey.
Children
Reading
Silly
God Whispers To Us In Our Pleasures, Speaks To Us In Our Conscience, But Shouts In Our Pains.
Christian
Pain
Speak
The Full Acting Out Of The Self's Surrender To God Therefore Demands Pain: This Action, To Be Perfect, Must Be Done From The Pure Will To Obey, In The Absence, Or In The Teeth, Of Inclination
Pain
Self
Perfect
Honest Rejection Of Christ, However Mistaken, Will Be Forgiven And Healed ... But To Evade The Son Of Man, To Look The Other Way, To Pretend You Haven't Noticed, To Become Suddenly Absorbed In Something On The Other Side Of The Street, To Leave The Receiver Off The Telephone Because It Might Be He Who Was Ringing Up, To Leave Unopened Certain Letters In A Strange Handwriting Because They Might Be From Him -- This Is A Different Matter. You May Not Be Certain Yet Whether You Ought To Be A Christian; But You Do Know You Ought To Be A Man, Not An Ostrich, Hiding Its Head In The Sand.
Christian
Son
Men
Here At Last Is The Thing I Was Made For.
Lasts
Made
Obedience Is The Road To Freedom, Humility The Road To Pleasure, Unity The Road To Personality.
Humility
Personality
Unity
Onward And Upward! To Narnia And The North!
Onward And Upward
Narnia
I Do Not Know Why There Is This Difference, But I Am Sure That God Keeps No One Waiting Unless He Sees That It Is Good For Him To Wait. When You Do Enter Your Room, You Will Find That The Long Wait Has Done You Some Kind Of Good Which You Would Not Have Had Otherwise. But You Must Regard It As Waiting, Not As Camping. You Must Keep On Praying For Light: And Of Course, Even In The Hall, You Must Begin Trying To Obey The Rules Which Are Common To The Whole House. And Above All You Must Be Asking Which Door Is The True One; Not Which Pleases You Best By Its Paint And Paneling.
Light
Doors
Differences
A Thing May Be Morally Neutral And Yet The Desire For That Thing May Be Dangerous.
Desire
May
Dangerous
I Care Far More How Humanity Lives Than How Long. Progress, For Me, Means Increasing Goodness And Happiness Of Individual Lives. For The Species, As For Each Man, Mere Longevity Seems To Me A Contemptible Ideal.
Happiness
Mean
Men
Some Day You Will Be Old Enough To Start Reading Fairy Tales Again.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
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.
Heart
Voice
Smell
You Had Nothing To Say About It And Yet Made The Nothing Up Into Words.
Made
Fancy Sleeping On Air. I Wonder If Anyone's Done It Before. I Don't Suppose They Have. Oh, Bother—-scrubb Probably Has!
Sleep
Air
Done
God Can Show Himself As He Really Is Only To Real Men. And That Means Not Simply To Men Who Are Individually Good, But To Men Who Are United Together In A Body, Loving One Another, Helping One Another, Showing Him To One Another. For That Is What God Meant Humanity To Be Like; Like Players In One Band, Or Organs In One Body.
Real
Mean
Player
In A Civilization Like Ours, I Feel That Everyone Has To Come To Terms With The Claims Of Jesus Christ Upon His Life, Or Else Be Guilty Of Inattention Or Of Evading The Question.
Jesus
Civilization
Inattention
The Doctrine Of The Second Coming Teaches Us That We Do Not And Cannot Know When The World Drama Will End. The Curtain May Be Rung Down At Any Moment: Say, Before You Have Finished Reading This Paragraph.
Drama
Reading
Doctrine
Human Beings Judge One Another By Their External Actions. God Judges Them By Their Moral Choices.
Judging
Choices
Action
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.
Diversity
Heaven
Grace
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
Giving To The Poor Is An Essential Part Of Christian Morality.
Christian
Giving
Essentials
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
Please Will You Do My Job For Me.
Jobs
Please
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.
Party
Love Is
Law
Be Good, Sweet Maid, And Don't Forget That This Involves Being As Clever As You Can.
Sweet
Clever
Maids
One Must Never Be Either Content With, Or Impatient With, Oneself.
Impatient
Oneself
Every Day In A Life Fills The Whole Life With Expectations And Memory.
Memories
Expectations
Whole Life
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.
Selling Things
Wish
Important
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.
Tired
Space
May
I Think We All Sin By Needlessly Disobeying The Apostolic Injunction To "rejoice" As Much As By Anything Else
Thinking
Sin
Disobeying
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
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.
Christian
Support
Church
I Fancy That Most People Who Think At All Have Done A Great Deal Of Their Thinking In The First Fourteen Years.
Thinking
Years
People
What One Must Not Do Is To Rule Out The Supernatural As The One Impossible Explanation.
Impossible
Explanation
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.
Father
Real
Son
But Probably Every Age Gets, Within Certain Limits, The Science It Deserves.
Age
Limits
Certain
A Little Lie Is Like A Little Pregnancy It Doesn't Take Long Before Everyone Knows.
Christian
Lying
Pregnancy
In God's Dimension, So To Speak, You Find A Being Who Is Three Persons While Remaining One Being, Just As A Cube Is Six Squares While Remaining One Cube.
Squares
Three
Cubes
God Is, If I May Say It, Very Unscrupulous
Atheism
May
Ifs
The Church Exists For Nothing Else But To Draw Men Into Christ, To Make Them Little Christs. If They Are Not Doing That, All The Cathedrals, Clergy, Missions, Sermons, Even The Bible Itself, Are Simply A Waste Of Time. God Became Man For No Other Purpose.
Men
Religion
Church
No Doubt Those Who Really Founded Modern Science Were Usually Those Whose Love Of Truth Exceeded Their Love Of Power.
Wisdom
Doubt
Modern
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
It Was Not For Societies Or States, That Christ Died, But For Men.
Men
Christ
States
The Gap Between Those Who Worship Different Gods Is Not So Wide As The Gap Between Those Who Worship And Those Who Don't.
Wisdom
Different
Gaps
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
Christian
Ideas
Doctrine
What Began The Change Was The Very Writing Itself. Let No One Lightly Set About Such A Work. Memory, Once Waked, Will Play The Tyrant.
Memories
Writing
Play
I#pray Because The Need Flows Out Of Me All The Time-walking And Sleeping. It Does Not Change #‎ God - It Changes Me.
Sleep
Doe
Needs
Because We Love Something Else More Than This World, We Love Even This World More Than Those Who Know No Other.
World
This World
Knows
Each Day We Are Becoming A Creature Of Splendid Glory Or One Of Unthinkable Horror.
Inspirational
Each Day
Becoming
Whenever A Person Dwells Chiefly, Or Even Frequently, On The Faults Of Other People's Religions, He Is In A Bad Condition.
People
Faults
Persons
The Assumption That Things Which Have Been Conjured In The Past Will Always Be Conjured In The Guiding Principle Not Of Rational But Of Animal Behavior.
Animal
Past
Guiding Principles
If We Let Ourselves, We Shall Always Be Waiting For Some Distraction Or Other To End Before We Can Really Get Down To Our Work. The Only People Who Achieve Much Are Those Who Want Knowledge So Badly That They Seek It While The Conditions Are Still Unfavorable. Favorable Conditions Never Come.
Inspirational
Learning
People
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
I Have Come Home At Last! This Is My Real Country! I Belong Here. This Is The Land I Have Been Looking For All My Life, Though I Never Knew It Till Now... Come Further Up, Come Further In!
Country
Real
Home
If We Will Not Learn To Eat The Only Food That The Universe Grows...then We Must Starve Eternally.
Wisdom
Grows
Ifs
Christ Died For Men Precisely Because Men Are Not Worth Dying For; To Make Them Worth It.
Men
Dying
Christ
Grief Is Like A Bomber Circling Round And Dropping Its Bombs Each Time The Circle Brings It Overhead; Physical Pain Is Like The Steady Barrage On A Trench In World War One, Hours If It With No Let-up For A Moment. Thought Is Never Static Pain Often Is... Is It Not Yet Enough?
Pain
War
Grief
Man Is To Be Understood Only In His Relationship To God.
Men
Understood
When We Christians Behave Badly, Or Fail To Behave Well, We Are Making Christianity Unbelievable To The Outside World
Inspirational
Christian
World
He (god) Loved Us Not Because We Are Lovable, But Because He Is Love.
Christian
God Love
Lovable
God Has Landed On This Enemy-occupied World In Human Form...the Perfect Surrender And Humiliation Was Undergone By Christ: Perfect Because He Was God, Surrender And Humiliation Because He Was Man.
Faith
Men
Perfect
But Now I Discovered The Wonderful Power Of Wine. I Understood Why Men Become Drunkards. For The Way It Worked On Me Was Not At All That It Blotted Out These Sorrows, But That It Made Them Seem Glorious And Noble, Like Sad Music, And I Somehow Great And Revered For Feeling Them.
Wine
Men
Feelings
One Of The Most Cowardly Things Ordinary People Do Is To Shut Their Eyes To Facts.
Eye
People
Ordinary
Can A Mortal Ask Questions Which God Finds Unanswerable? Quite Easily, I Should Think. All Nonsense Questions Are Unanswerable.
God
Thinking
Demise
If You Do One Good Deed Your Reward Usually Is To Be Set To Do Another And Harder And Better One.
Deeds
Rewards
Harder
Try To Exclude The Possibility Of Suffering Which The Order Of Nature And The Existence Of Free-wills Involve, And You Find That You Have Excluded Life Itself
Life
Order
Suffering
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.
World
Path
Seems
If You Are A Christian, You Are Free To Think That All These Religions, Even The Queerest Ones, Contain At Least Some Hint Of The Truth.
Christian
Thinking
Hints
Every Object You See Before You At This Moment -the Walls, Ceiling, And Furniture, The Book, Your Own Washed Hands And Cut Fingernails, Bears Witness To The Colonization Of Nature Of Reason.
Wall
Book
Cutting
But If You Are A Poor Creature--poisoned By A Wretched Up-bringing In Some House Full Of Vulgar Jealousies And Senseless Quarrels--saddled, By No Choice Of Your Own, With Some Loathsome Sexual Perversion--nagged Day In And Day Out By An Inferiority Complex That Makes You Snap At Your Best Friends--do Not Despair. He Knows All About It. You Are One Of The Poor Whom He Blessed. He Knows What A Wretched Machine You Are Trying To Drive. Keep On. Do What You Can. One Day He Will Fling It On The Scrap-heap And Give You A New One. And Then You May Astonish Us All - Not Least Yourself.
Blessed
Giving
House
We Cannot Fully Understand The Relations Of Time And Choice Until We Are Beyond Both.
Choices
Relation
I Am A Product [...of] Endless Books. My Father Bought All The Books He Read And Never Got Rid Of Any Of Them.... I Had Always The Same Certainty Of Finding A Book That Was New To Me As A Man Who Walks Into A Field Has Of Finding A New Blade Of Grass.
Father
Book
Men
No One Can Say 'he Jests At Scars Who Never Felt A Wound' For I Have Never For One Moment Been In A State Of Mind To Which Even The Imagination Of Serious Pain Was Less Than Intolerable. If Any Man Is Safe From The Danger Of Under-estimating This Adversary, I Am That Man.
Pain
Men
Imagination
The Christian Claim Is: Nothing Explains The Facts Better Than An All-powerful, All-knowing, Omnipresent God Creating The Universe And Sending Jesus To Spread His Message. This Is About As Remarkable A Claim As Could Be Stated, And Yet It Is Tossed Out Lightly. Christians Seem To Imagine That "god Did It" Is As Plausible As The Natural Explanation That Stories Grow With The Retelling. The Christian Has The Burden Of Proof, And It's An Enormous Burden Given This Enormous Claim.
Christian
Jesus
Imagine
The Discomfiture We Feel May Be Our Most Accurate Human Sensation; Reminding Us We Are Not Quite "at Home" Here.
Home
May
Accurate
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
We Are Not Living In A World Where All Roads Are Radii If A Circle And Where All, If Followed Long Enough, Will Therefore Draw Gradually Nearer And Finally Meet At The Centre: Rather In A World Where Every Road, After A Few Miles, Forks Into Two, And Each Of Those Into Two Again, And At Each Fork You Must Make A Decision.
Circles
Two
Long
Be Sure It Is Not For Nothing That The Landlord Has Knit Our Hearts So Closely To Time And Place – To One Friend Rather Than Another And One Shire More That All The Land.
Heart
Land
Shire
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.
Girl
Book
Reading
He's Wild, You Know. Not Like A Tame Lion.
Lions
Narnia
Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe
God Doesn't Want Something From Us. He Simply Wants Us.
Want Something
Ministry
Want
I See You Are An Idiot, Whatever Else You May Be.
May
Idiot
Lion Witch Wardrobe
The Proper Good Of A Creature Is To Surrender Itself To Its Creator—to Enact Intellectually, Volitionally, And Emotionally, That Relationship Which Is Given In The Mere Fact Of Its Being A Creature. When It Does So, It Is Good And Happy.
Doe
Facts
Surrender
On The Whole, God’s Love For Us Is A Much Safer Subject To Think About Than Our Love For Him. Nobody Can Always Have Devout Feelings: And Even If We Could, Feelings Are Not What God Principally Cares About. Christian Love, Either Towards God Or Towards Man, Is An Affair Of The Will.
Christian
Men
Thinking
Joy Is The Serious Business Of Heaven. Our Merriment Must Be Between People Who Take Each Other Seriously.
People
Joy
Heaven
Sexual Appetite, Like Any Other Appetite, Grows By Indulgence
Appetite
Grows
Indulgence
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.
Fear
Nice
House
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.
Sweet
Fire
Smell
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.
Language
Communicate
Mediums
When You Invite A Middle-aged Moralist To Address You, I Suppose I Must Conclude That You Have A Taste For Middle-aged Moralizing.
Age
Addresses
Taste
Theology Offers You A Working Arrangement, Which Leaves The Scientist Free To Continue His Experiments And The Christian To Continue His Prayers.
Christian
Prayer
Miracle
The Road To The Promised Land Runs Past Sinai. The Moral Law May Exist To Be Transcended: But There Is No Transcending It For Those Who Have Not First Admitted Its Claims Up On Them, And Then Tried With All Their Strength To Meet That Claim, And Fairly And Squarely Faced The Fact Of Their Failure.
Running
Past
Law
No Justification Of Virtue Will Enable A Man To Be Virtuous. Without The Aid Of Trained Emotions The Intellect Is Powerless Against The Animal Organism. I Had Sooner Play Cards Against A Man Who Was Quite Skeptical About Ethics, But Bred To Believe That ‘a Gentleman Does Not Cheat’, Than Against An Irreproachable Moral Philosopher Who Had Been Brought Up Among Sharpers.
Believe
Animal
Men
God Has Paid Us The Intolerable Compliment Of Loving Us, In The Deepest, Most Tragic, Most Inexorable Sense.
Compliment
Tragic
Inexorable
It Is Very True. But Even A Traitor May Mend. I Have Known One That Did.
May
Traitor
Very True
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.
Miracle
Risk
Majority
For Prayer Is Request. The Essence Of Request, As Distinct From Compulsion, Is That It May Or May Not Be Granted.
Prayer
Essence
May
One Is Given Strength To Bear What Happens To One, But Not The 100 And 1 Different Things That Might Happen.
Different
Might
Bears
Every Contact You Make With Everyone You Meet Will Help Them Or Hinder Them On Their Journey To Heaven.
Journey
Heaven
Helping
I Thought I Could Describe A State; Make A Map Of Sorrow. Sorrow, Hoever, Turns Out To Be Not A State But A Process.
Grief
Sorrow
Maps
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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