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Monarchy Can Easily Be "debunked," But Watch The Faces, Mark Well The Debunkers. These Are The Men Whose Taproot In Eden Has Been Cut: Whom No Rumour Of The Polyphony, The Dance, Can Reach - Men To Whom Pebbles Laid In A Row Are More Beautiful Than An Arch. Where Men Are Forbidden To Honour A King They Honour Millionaires, Athletes Or Film Stars Instead: For Spiritual Nature, Like Bodily Nature, Will Be Served; Deny It Food And It Will Gobble Poison.

-C. S. Lewis

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Monarchy Can Easily Be

C. S. Lewis

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Monarchy Can Easily Be "debunked," But Watch The Faces, Mark Well The Debunkers. These Are The Men Whose Taproot In Eden Has Been Cut: Whom No Rumour Of The Polyphony, The Dance, Can Reach - Men To Whom Pebbles Laid In A Row Are More Beautiful Than An Arch. Where Men Are Forbidden To Honour A King They Honour Millionaires, Athletes Or Film Stars Instead: For Spiritual Nature, Like Bodily Nature, Will Be Served; Deny It Food And It Will Gobble Poison.

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I Want God, Not My Idea Of God.

The Sin Both Of Men And Of Angels, Was Rendered Possible By The Fact That God Gave Us Free Will.

The Story Itself Should Force Its Moral Upon You. You Find Out What The Moral Is By Writing The Story.

Good Philosophy Must Exist, If For No Other Reason, Because Bad Philosophy Needs To Be Answered.

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.

Heaven Offers Nothing That A Mercenary Soul Can Desire.

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).

Peter, High King Of Narnia," Said Aslan. "shut The Door.

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

Spying On People By Magic Is The Same As Spying On Them In Any Other Way.

If Anyone Present Wishes To Make Me The Subject Of His Wit, I Am Very Much At His Service--with My Sword--whenever He Has Leisure.

Reality Is Harsh To The Feet Of Shadows. But Will You Come?

One Can Regard The Moral Law As An Illusion, And So Cut Himself Off From The Common Ground Of Humanity.

Put First Things First And We Get Second Things Thrown In: Put Second Things First & We Lose Both First And Second Things.

Put First Things First

If Only This Toothache Would Go Away, I Could Write Another Chapter On The Problem Of Pain.

All Your Life An Unattainable Ecstasy Has Hovered Just Beyond The Grasp Of Your Consciousness. The Day Is Coming When You Will Wake To Find, Beyond All Hope, That You Have Attained It, Or Else, That It Was Within Your Reach And You Have Lost It Forever.

The Value Given To The Testimony Of Any Feeling Must Depend On Our Whole Philosophy, Not Our Whole Philosophy On A Feeling.

That Raises A Terrible Question. How Is It That People Who Are Quite Obviously Eaten Up With Pride Can Say They Believe In God And Appear To Themselves Very Religious? I Am Afraid It Means They Are Worshiping An Imaginary God.

When First Things Are Put First, Second Things Are Not Suppressed But Increased.

Put First Things First

First Things First

The More Imagination The Reader Has ... The More He Will Do For Himself. He Will, At A Mere Hint From The Author, Flood Wretched Material With Suggestion And Never Guess That He Is Himself Chiefly Making What He Enjoys.

The Discomfiture We Feel May Be Our Most Accurate Human Sensation; Reminding Us We Are Not Quite "at Home" Here.

Only A Real Risk Tests The Reality Of A Belief.

I Don't Pray So That I Can Change God. I Pray So That God Can Change Me.

Pride Gets No Pleasure Out Of Having Something, Only Out Of Having More Of It Than The Next Man... It Is The Comparison That Makes You Proud: The Pleasure Of Being Above The Rest. Once The Element Of Competition Is Gone, Pride Is Gone.

The Mold In Which A Key Is Made Would Be A Strange Thing, If You Had Never Seen A Key: And The Key Itself A Strange Thing If You Had Never Seen A Lock. Your Soul Has A Curious Shape Because It Is A Hollow Made To Fit A Particular Swelling In The Infinite Contours Of The Divine Substance, Or A Key To Unlock One Of The Doors In The House With Many Mansions. Your Place In Heaven Will Seem To Be Made For You And You Alone, Because You Were Made For It -- Made For It Stitch By Stitch As A Glove Is Made For A Hand.

It's All Love Or Sex These Days. Friendship Is Almost As Quaint And Outdated A Notion As Chastity. Soon Friends Will Be Like The Elves And The Pixies - Fabulous Mythical Creatures From A Distant Past.

Feeling Like The Voice She Liked Best In All The World Was Calling Her Name.

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?

Human Beings Look Separate Because You See Them Walking About Separately. But Then We Are So Made That We Can See Only The Present Moment. If We Could See The Past, Then Of Course It Would Look Different. For There Was A Time When Every Man Was Part Of His Mother, And (earlier Still) Part Of His Father As Well, And When They Were Part Of His Grandparents. If You Could See Humanity Spread Out In Time, As God Sees It, It Would Look Like One Single Growing Thing--rather Like A Very Complicated Tree. Every Individual Would Appear Connected With Every Other.

We Come To Scripture Not To Learn A Subject But To Steep Ourselves In A Person.

The Fact That You Are Giving Money To Charity Does Not Mean That You Need Not Try To Find Out Whether That Charity Is A Fraud Or Not.

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.

The Central Christian Belief Is That Christ's Death Has Somehow Put Us Right With God And Given Us A Fresh Start.

I Am Perfectly Convinced That Whatever The Gospels Are They Are Not Legends. I Have Read A Great Deal Of Legend And I Am Quite Clear They Are Not That Sort Of Thing....christ Bent Down And Scribbled In The Dust With His Finger. Nothing Comes Of This. No One Has Based Any Doctrine On It. And The Act Of Inventing Little Irrelevant Details To Make An Imaginary Scene More Convincing Is Purely A Modern Art.

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.

We Make Men Without Chests And Expect From Them Virtue And Enterprise. We Laugh At Honor And Are Shocked To Find Traitors In Our Midst.

It Now Seemed To Me That All My Other Guesses Had Been Only Self-pleasing Dreams Spun Out Of My Wishes, But Now I Was Awake.

There Is Someone That I Love Even Though I Don't Approve Of What He Does. There Is Someone I Accept Though Some Of His Thoughts And Actions Revolt Me. There Is Someone I Forgive Though He Hurts The People I Love The Most. That Person Is......me.

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.

In Each Of My Friends There Is Something That Only Some Other Friend Can Fully Bring Out. By Myself I Am Not Large Enough To Call The Whole Man Into Activity; I Want Other Lights Than My Own To Show All His Facets... Hence True Friendship Is The Least Jealous Of Loves. Two Friends Delight To Be Joined By A Third, And Three By A Fourth, If Only The Newcomer Is Qualified To Become A Real Friend. They Can Then Say, As The Blessed Souls Say In Dante, "here Comes One Who Will Augment Our Loves." For In This Love "to Divide Is Not To Take Away.

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In Justifying Cruelty To Animals We Put Ourselves Also On The Animal Level. We Choose The Jungle And Must Abide By Our Choice.

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.

We Have A Strange Illusion That Mere Time Cancels Sin. But Mere Time Does Nothing Either To The Fact Or To The Guilt Of A Sin.

The Continual Looking Forward To The Eternal World Is Not A Form Of Escapism Or Wishful Thinking, But One Of The Things A Christian Is Meant To Do.

Provided That Any Of Those Neighbours Sing Out Of Tune Or Have Boots That Squeak, Or Double Chins, Or Odd Clothes, The Patient Will Quite Easily Believe That Their Religion Must Therefore Be Somehow Ridiculous.

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

The Only Palliative Is To Keep The Clean Sea Breeze Of The Centuries Blowing Through Our Minds, And This Can Be Done Only By Reading Old Books.

All Mortals Tend To Turn Into The Thing They Are Pretending To Be. This Is Elementary

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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.

We Don't Have A Soul. We Are A Soul. We Happen To Have A Body.

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Surely What A Man Does When He Is Taken Off His Guard Is The Best Evidence For What Sort Of Man He Is.

It Is Hard To Have Patience With People Who Say 'there Is No Death' Or 'death Doesn't Matter.' There Is Death. And Whatever Is Matters. And Whatever Happens Has Consequences, And It And They Are Irrevocable And Irreversible. You Might As Well Say That Birth Doesn't Matter.

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

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

A Dragon Has Just Flown Over The Tree-tops And Lighted On The Beach. Yes, I Am Afraid It Is Between Us And The Ship. And Arrows Are No Use Against Dragons. And They're Not At All Afraid Of Fire." "with Your Majesty's Leave-" Began Reepicheep. "no, Reepicheep," Said The King Very Firmly, "you Are Not To Attempt A Single Combat With It.

At A Well In A Yard They Met A Man Who Was Beating A Boy. The Stick Burst Into A Flower In The Mans Hand. He Tried To Drop It, But It Stuck To His Hand. His Arm Became A Branch, His Body The Trunk Of A Tree, His Feet Took Root.

I Believe That If A Million Chances Were Likely To Do Good, They Would Be Given.

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

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.

If, As I Can't Help Suspecting, The Dead Also Feel The Pains Of Separation (and This May Be One Of Their Purgatorial Sufferings), Then For Both Lovers, And For All Pairs Of Lovers Without Exception, Bereavement Is A Universal And Integral Part Of Our Experience Of Love.

You Can Begin As If Nothing Had Ever Gone Wrong. White As Snow.

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.

When You Have Reached Your Own Room, Be Kind To Those Who Have Chosen Different Doors And To Those Who Are Still In The Hall.

Obedience Is The Key That Opens Every Door.

Onward And Upward! To Narnia And The North!

Onward And Upward

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

We Read To Know We Are Not Alone.

Write About What Really Interests You, Whether It Is Real Things Or Imaginary Things, And Nothing Else.

Daughter Of Eve From The Far Land Of Spare Oom Where Eternal Summer Reigns Around The Bright City Of War Drobe, How Would It Be If You Came And Had Tea With Me?

God Sometimes Seems To Speak To Us Most Intimately When He Catches Us, As It Were, Off Our Guard.

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.

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.

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

On The Back Of Satan's Neck Is A Nail Scarred Footprint.

Beloved," Said The Glorious One, "unless Thy Desire Had Been For Me Thou Wouldst Not Have Sought So Long And So Truly. For All Find What They Truly Seek.

When I'm Older I'll Understand" Said Lucy, " I Am Older And I Don't Think I Want To Understand", Replied Edmund

The Modern State Exists Not To Protect Our Rights But To Do Us Good Or Make Us Good - Anyway, To Do Something To Us Or To Make Us Something. Hence The New Name 'leaders' For Those Who Were Once 'rulers'. We Are Less Their Subjects Than Their Wards, Pupils, Or Domestic Animals. There Is Nothing Left Of Which We Can Say To Them, 'mind Your Own Business.' Our Whole Lives Are Their Business.

When We Lose One Blessing, Another Is Often Most Unexpectedly Given In Its Place [if We Anticipate And Look For It, Rather Than Wallow In Our 'supposed Loss'. It Can Be Helpful To Think Of The Loss Of That Blessing As Simply Necessary To Make Way For Another Different Blessing].

We Thought The Duke Would Have Been Pleased If The King's Majesty Would Have Married His Daughter, But Nothing Came Of That--' Squints, And Has Freckles,' Said Caspian. Oh, Poor Girl,' Said Lucy.

Now Sir, Said The Bulldog In His Business-like Way. 'are You A Animal, Vegetable, Or Mineral?' - The Magician's Nephew

Devils Are Depicted With Bats' Wings And Good Angels With Birds' Wings, Not Because Anyone Holds That Moral Deterioration Would Be Likely To Turn Feathers Into Membrane, But Because Most Men Like Birds Better Than Bats.

Every Time You Make A Choice You Are Turning The Central Part Of You, The Part Of You That Chooses, Into Something A Little Different From What It Was Before. And Taking Your Life As A Whole, With All Your Innumerable Choices, All Your Life Long You Are Slowly Turning This Central Thing Either Into A Heavenly Creature Or Into A Hellish Creature...

Everything Except God Has Some Natural Superior; Everything Except Unformed Matter Has Some Natural Inferior.

The Only Safe Rule Is To Give More Than We Can Spare. Our Charities Should Pinch And Hamper Us. If We Live At The Same Level Of Affluence As Other People Who Have Our Level Of Income, We Are Probably Giving Away Too Little.

If You Want To Get Warm You Must Stand Near The Fire: If You Want To Be Wet You Must Get Into The Water. If You Want Joy, Power, Peace, Eternal Life, You Must Get Close To, Or Even Into, The Thing That Has Them. They Are Not A Sort Of Prize Which God Could, If He Chose, Just Hand Out To Anyone.

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.

I Do Not Expect Old Heads On Young Shoulders.

The Value Of The Myth Is That It Takes All The Things We Know And Restores To Them The Rich Significance Which Has Been Hidden By ‘the Veil Of Familiarity.’ The Child Enjoys His Cold Meat, Otherwise Dull To Him, By Pretending It Is Buffalo, Just Killed With His Own Bow And Arrow. And The Child Is Wise. The Real Meat Comes Back To Him More Savory For Having Been Dipped In A Story…by Putting Bread, Gold, Horse, Apple, Or The Very Roads Into A Myth, We Do Not Retreat From Reality: We Rediscover It.

But The Great Thing To Remember Is That, Though Our Feelings Come And Go, His Love For Us Does Not. It Is Not Wearied By Our Sins, Or Our Indifference; And, Therefore, It Is Quite Relentless In Its Determination That We Shall Be Cured Of Those Sins, At Whatever Cost To Us, At Whatever Cost To Him.

Thus The Criminal Ceases To Be A Person, A Subject Of Rights And Duties, And Becomes Merely An Object On Which Society Can Work. And This Is, In Principle, How Hitler Treated The Jews. They Were Objects; Killed Not For Ill Desert But Because, On His Theories, They Were A Disease In Society. If Society Can Mend, Remake, And Unmake Men At Its Pleasure, Its Pleasure May, Of Course, Be Humane Or Homicidal. The Difference Is Important. But, Either Way, Rulers Have Become Owners.

Vanity Is Really The Least Bad And Most Pardonable Sort. The Vain Person Wants Praise, Applause, Admiration Too Much And Is Always Angling For It. It Is A Fault, But A Childlike And Even (in An Odd Way) A Humble Fault. It Shows That You Are Not Yet Completely Contented With Your Own Admiration. You Value Other People Enough To Want Them To Look At You. You Are In Fact Still Human.

It Is Very True. But Even A Traitor May Mend. I Have Known One That Did.

But I Remember More Dearly Autumn Afternoons In Bottoms That Lay Intensely Silent Under Old Great Trees

Friendship Arises Out Of Mere Companionship When Two Or More Of The Companions Discover That They Have In Common Some Insight Or Interest Or Even Taste Which The Others Do Not Share And Which, Till That Moment, Each Believed To Be His Own Unique Treasure (or Burden).

Literature Adds To Reality, It Does Not Simply Describe It.

We Cannot Fully Understand The Relations Of Time And Choice Until We Are Beyond Both.

Anger Is The Fluid Love Bleeds When Cut.

Friendship Love

But I Will Not Tell You How Long Or Short The Way Will Be; Only That It Lies Across A River. But Do Not Fear That, For I Am The Great Bridge Builder.

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

If Nothing Is Self-evident, Nothing Can Be Proved. Similarly If Nothing Is Obligatory For Its Own Sake, Nothing Is Obligatory At All.

No Interviews Without Appointments Except Between Nine And Ten P.m. On Second Saturdays.

Once The Feet Are Put Right, All The Rest Of Him Will Follow.

It Was Not For Societies Or States, That Christ Died, But For Men.

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

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.

Humour Is...the All-consoling And...the All-excusing, Grace Of Life.

Remember He Is The Artist And You Are The Picture. You Can’t See It, You Can't See Your True Self. So Quietly Submit To Be Painted.

The Worst Of Sleeping Out Of Doors Is That You Wake Up So Dreadfully Early. And When You Wake Up You Have To Get Up Because The Ground Is So Hard You Are Uncomfortable. And It Makes Matters Worse If There Is Nothing But Apples For Breakfast And You Have Had Nothing But Apples For Supper The Night Before.

When Christ Died, He Died For You Individually Just As Much As If You Had Been The Only Person In The World.

The Next Moment Is As Much Beyond Our Grasp, And As Much In God's Care, As That A Hundred Years Away. Care For The Next Minute Is As Foolish As Care For A Day In The Next Thousand Years. In Neither Can We Do Anything, In Both God Is Doing Everything.

So That The One Road For Which We Now Need God's Leadership Most Of All Is A Road God, In His Own Nature, Has Never Walked. But Suppose God Became A Man... He Could Surrender His Will, Suffer And Die, Because He Was A Man.

Come, Live With Me And You'll Know Me.

Friendship Is The Greatest Of Worldly Goods. Certainly To Me It Is The Chief Happiness Of Life.

We Must Meet Children As Equals In That Area Of Our Nature Where We Are Their Equals...the Child As Reader Is Neither To Be Patronized Nor Idolized: We Talk To Him As Man To Man.

Friends Are Seldom Found; They Are Made.

I Desired Dragons With A Profound Desire.

To Play Well The Scenes In Which We Are 'on' Concerns Us Much More Than To Guess About The Scenes That Follow It.

We Have To Be Continually Reminded Of What We Believe.

Obedience Is The Road To Freedom, Humility The Road To Pleasure, Unity The Road To Personality.

Faith In Christ Is The Only Thing To Save You From Despair.

I Am A Product [...of] Endless Books.

Consciousness Is Either Inexplicable Illusion, Or Else Revelation.

We Are Finite And God Will Not Call Us Everywhere Or To Support Every Worthy Cause. And Real Needs Are Not Far From Us.

Something Deep In The Human Heart Breaks At The Thought Of A Life Of Mediocrity.

If One Is Only To Talk From First-hand Experience, Conversation Would Be A Very Poor Business.

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 And Beyond.

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.

In The Moral Sphere, Every Act Of Justice Or Charity Involves Putting Ourselves In The Other Person's Place And Thus Transcending Our Own Competitive Particularity.

The Love Of Knowledge Is A Kind Of Madness.

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.

Aslan" Said Lucy "you're Bigger". "that Is Because You Are Older, Little One" Answered He. "not Because You Are?" "i Am Not. But Every Year You Grow, You Will Find Me Bigger".

And Since We Cannot Deceive The Whole Human Race All The Time, It Is Most Important Thus To Cut Every Generation Off From All Others; For Where Learning Makes A Free Commerce Between The Ages There Is Always The Danger That The Characteristic Errors Of One May Be Corrected By The Characteristic Truths Of Another.

For They (art And Music) Are Not The Thing Itself; They Are Only The Scent Of A Flower We Have Not Found, The Echo Of A Tune We Have Not Heard, News From A Country We Have Never Yet Visited.

On The Whole, God’s Love For Us Is A Much Safer Subject To Think About Than Our Love For Him.

And In Truth (as I Now See) I Had The Wish To Put Off My Journey As Long As I Could. Not For Any Peril Or Labour It Might Cost; But Because I Could See Nothing In The Whole World For Me To Do Once It Was Accomplished. As Long As This Act Lay Before Me, There Was, As It Were, Some Barrier Between Me And The Dead Desert Which The Rest Of My Life Must Be.

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."

I Know All About The Despair Of Overcoming Chronic Temptation. It Is Not Serious, Provided Self-offended Petulance, Annoyance At Breaking Records, Impatience, Etc., Don't Get The Upper Hand. No Amount Of Falls Will Really Undo Us If We Keep Picking Ourselves Up Each Time...the Only Fatal Thing Is To Lose One's Temper And Give Up.

I Know The Two Great Commandments, And I'd Better Get On With Them.

Courage Is Not Simply One Of The Virtues, But The Form Of Every Virtue At The Testing Point, Which Means, At The Point Of Highest Reality. A Chastity Or Honesty Or Mercy Which Yields To Danger Will Be Chaste Or Honest Or Merciful Only On Conditions. Pilate Was Merciful Till It Became Risky.

There Comes A Moment When People Who Have Been Dabbling In Religion ('man's Search For God'!) Suddenly Draw Back. Supposing We Really Found Him? We Never Meant It To Come To That! Worse Still, Supposing He Had Found Us?

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.

You Come Of The Lord Adam And The Lady Eve," Said Aslan. "and That Is Both Honour Enough To Erect The Head Of The Poorest Beggar, And Shame Enough To Bow The Shoulders Of The Greatest Emperor On Earth. Be Content.

Life With God Is Not Immunity From Difficulties, But Peace In Difficulties.

Earthly Pleasures Were Never Meant To Satisfy.

When You Invite A Middle-aged Moralist To Address You, I Suppose I Must Conclude That You Have A Taste For Middle-aged Moralizing.

Love, Having Become A God, Becomes A Demon.

I Think I Am Beginning To Understand Why Grief Feels Like Suspense. It Comes From The Frustration Of So Many Impulses That Had Become Habitual. Thought After Thought Feeling After Feeling Action After Action Had H. For Their Object. Now Their Target Is Gone. I Keep On Through Habit Fitting An Harrow To The String Then I Remember And Have To Lay The Bow Down. So Many Roads Lead Through To H. I Set Out On One Of Them. But Now There's An Impassable Frontier-post Across It. So Many Roads Once Now So Many Culs De Sac.

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.

There Is One Vice Of Which No Man In The World Is Free; Which Every One In The World Loathes When He Sees It In Someone Else; And Of Which Hardly Any People, Except Christians, Ever Imagine That They Are Guilty Themselves. […] There Is No Fault Which Makes A Man More Unpopular, And No Fault Which We Are More Unconscious Of In Ourselves.[…]the Vice I Am Talking Of Is Pride Or Self-conceit: And The Virtue Opposite To It, In Christian Morals, Is Called Humility.

Into The Void Of Silence, Into The Empty Space Of Nothing, The Joy Of Life Is Unfurled.

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

Is There Any Possibility Of Getting The Super Welfare State's Honey And Avoiding The Sting?

And She Never Could Remember; And Ever Since That Day What Lucy Means By A Good Story Is A Story Which Reminds Her Of The Forgotten Story In The Magician's Book.

Now That I Am A Christian I Do Have Moods In Which The Whole Thing Looks Improbable: But When I Was An Atheist I Had Moods In Which Christianity Looked Terribly Probable.

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.

A Children's Story That Can Only Be Enjoyed By Children Is Not A Good Children's Story In The Slightest." He Also Said: "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 50 And Beyond.

I Wish I Were Younger. What Inclines Me Now To Think You May Be Right In Regarding [evolution] As The Central And Radical Lie In The Whole Web Of Falsehood That Now Governs Our Lives Is Not So Much Your Arguments Against It As The Fanatical And Twisted Attitudes Of Its Defenders.

We Are All Fallen Creatures And All Very Hard To Live With.

If You Have Once Accepted Christianity, Then Some Of Its Main Doctrines Shall Be Deliberately Held Before Your Mind For Some Time Every Day. That Is Why Daily Prayers And Religious Reading And Churchgoing Are Necessary Parts Of The Christian Life. We Have To Be Continually Reminded Of What We Believe. Neither This Belief Nor Any Other Will Automatically Remain Alive In The Mind. It Must Be Fed.

Extraordinary Things Only Happen To Extraordinary People. Maybe It's A Sign That You've Got An Extraordinary Destiny--something Greater Than You Could've Imagined.

Extraordinary Things

I Hope I Do Not Offend God By Making My Communions In The Frame Of Mind I Have Been Describing. The Command, After All, Was Take, Eat: Not Take, Understand.

How Little People Know Who Think That Holiness Is Dull... When One Meets The Real Thing, It's Irresistible!

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.

The Most Deeply Compelled Action Is Also The Freest Action. By That I Mean, No Part Of You Is Outside The Action.

Through Pride The Devil Became The Devil. Pride Leads To Every Vice, It's The Complete Anti-god State Of Mind.

Our Experience Is Coloured Through And Through By Books And Plays And The Cinema, And It Takes Patience And Skill To Disentangle The Things We Have Really Learned From Life For Ourselves.

To Every Soul, God Will Look Like Its First Love Because He Is Its First Love. Your Place In Heaven Will Seem To Be Made For You And You Alone, Because You Were Made For It - Made For It Stitch By Stitch As A Glove Is Made For A Hand.

You'll Never Make A Good Impression On Other People Until You Stop Thinking What Sort Of Impression You Make.

If My House Has Collapsed At One Blow, That Is Because It Was A House Of Cards. The Faith Which 'took These Things Into Account' Was Not Faith But Imagination.

A Faith In Culture Is As Bad As A Faith In Religion; Both Expressions Imply A Turning Away From Those Very Things Which Culture And Religion Are About. Culture As A Collective Name For Certain Very Valuable Activities Is A Permissible Word; But Culture Hypostatized, Set Up On Its Own, Made Into A Faith, A Cause, A Banner, A Platform, Is Unendurable. For None Of The Activities In Question Cares A Straw For That Faith Or Cause. It Is Like A Return To Early Semitic Religion Where Names Themselves Were Regarded As Powers.

What Do They Teach Them At These Schools?

It Is, Of Course, Quite True That God Will Not Love You Any Less, Or Have Less Use For You, If You Happen To Have Been Born With A Very Second-rate Brain.

No Man Can Be An Exile If He Remembers That All The World Is One City.

God's Love Is Not Wearied By Our Sins & Is Relentless In Its Determination That We Be Cured At Whatever Cost To Us Or Him

And The Whole Forest Would Give Itself Up To Jollification For Weeks On End.

Whether We Like It Or Not, God Intends To Give Us What We Need, Not What We Now Think We Want

God Is No Fonder Of Intellectual Slackers Than He Is Of Any Other Slacker.

Every Joy Is Beyond All Others.

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?

And Men Said That The Blood Of The Stars Flowed In Her Veins

I Pray Because I Can't Help Myself.

We Have Lost The Invaluable Faculty Of Being Shocked A Faculty Which Has Hitherto Almost Distinguished The Man Or Woman From The Beast Or Child.

Let There Be Wicked Kings And Beheadings, Battles And Dungeons, Giants And Dragons, And Let The Villans Be Soundly Killed At The End Of The Book. I Think It Is Possible That By Confining Your Child To The Blameless Stories Of Life In Which Nothing At All Alarming Ever Happens, You Would Fail To Banish The Terrors, And Would Succeed In Banishing All That Can Ennoble Them Or Make Them Endurable.

Evil Comes From The Abuse Of Free Will

Above All Else , The Devil Can Not Stand To Be Mocked.

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.

But He Always Licked To Get Visitors Alone In The Billiard Room And Tell Them Stories About A Mysterious Lady, A Foreign Royalty, With Whom He Had Driven About London. 'a Devilish Temper She Had,' He Would Say. 'but She Was A Dem Fine Woman, Sir, A Dem Fine Woman.

The People Who Keep Asking If They Can't Lead A Decent Life Without Christ, Don't Know What Life Is About; If They Did They Would Know That 'a Decent Life' Is Mere Machinery Compared With The Thing We Men Are Really Made For.

If We Continue To Make Moral Judgements (and Whatever We Say Shall In Fact Continue) Then We Must Believe That The Conscience Of Man Is Not A Product Of Nature.

Heaven, Once Attained, Will Work Backwards And Turn Even Agony Into A Glory

This Is One Of The Miracles Of Love: It Gives A Power Of Seeing Through Its Own Enchantments And Yet Not Being Disenchanted.

All The Delights Of Sense, Or Heart, Or Intellect, With Which You Could Once Have Tempted Him, Even The Delights Of Virtue Itself, Now Seem To Him In Comparison But As The Half Nauseous Attractions Of A Raddled Harlot Would Seem To A Man Who Hears That His True Beloved Whom He Has Loved All His Life And Whom He Had Believed To Be Dead Is Alive And Even Now At His Door.

God Is Not A Static Thing...but A Dynamic, Pulsating Activity, A Life, Almost A Kind Of Drama. Almost, If You Will Not Think Me Irreverent, A Kind Of Dance.

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

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

Peter Did Not Feel Very Brave; Indeed, He Felt He Was Going To Be Sick. But That Made No Difference To What He Had To Do.

I Wish They Would 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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