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.

-C. S. Lewis

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Q. What Is Your

C. S. Lewis

Topic

Christian

Jesus

Believe

More From C. S. Lewis

The Perfect Church Service Would Be The One We Were Almost Unaware Of; Our Attention Would Have Been On God. But Every Novelty Prevents This. It Fixes Our Attention On The Service Itself; And Thinking About Worship Is A Different Thing Than Worshipping ... 'tis Mad Idolatry That Makes The Service Greater Than The God.

Military

War

Thinking

Everyone Says That Forgiveness Is A Lovely Idea Until He Has Something To Forgive Yet Tasted One Of The Most Sublime Enjoyments Of Life.

Forgiveness

Ideas

Lovely

Joy Is Never In Our Power And Pleasure Often Is

Often Is

Joy

Pleasure

I Sometimes Think That Shame, Mere Awkward, Senseless Shame, Does As Much Towards Preventing Good Acts And Straightforward Happiness As Any Of Our Vices Can Do.

Happiness

Thinking

Awkward

I Felt In My Bones That This Universe Does Not Explain Itself.

Doe

Bones

Felt

In Such A Fearful World, We Need A Fearless Church

Fearless

Church

Needs

If You Haven't Met Satan Recently, You Are Probably Going His Way!

Way

Satan

Mets

If You Don't Listen To Theology, That Won't Mean You Have No Ideas About God, It Will Mean You Have A Lot Of Wrong Ones.

Mean

Ideas

Theology

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.

Believe

Men

Miracle

If You Had Felt Yourself Sufficient, It Would Have Been A Proof That You Were Not.

Narnia

Proof

Kingship

Aslan Is A Lion- The Lion, The Great Lion." "ooh" Said Susan. "i'd Thought He Was A Man. Is He-quite Safe? I Shall Feel Rather Nervous About Meeting A Lion"..."safe?" Said Mr Beaver ..."who Said Anything About Safe? 'course He Isn't Safe. But He's Good. He's The King, I Tell You.

Kings

Men

Lions

At Least He Went On Saying This Till Aslan Had Loaded Him Up With Three Dwarfs, One Dryad, Two Rabbits, And A Hedgehog, That Steadied Him A Bit.

Two

Rabbits

Three

Children Have One Kind Of Silliness, As You Know, And Grown-ups Have Another Kind.

Children

Kind

Silliness

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

All Is Summed Up In The Prayer Which A Young Female Human Is Said To Have Uttered Recently: "o God, Make Me A Normal Twentieth-century Girl!" Thanks To Our Labors, This Will Mean Increasingly: "make Me A Minx, A Moron, And A Parasite.

Girl

Prayer

Mean

Nature Does Not Teach. A True Philosophy May Sometimes Validate An Experience Of Nature; An Experience Of Nature Cannot Validate A Philosophy. Nature Will Not Verify Any Theological Or Metaphysical Proposition (or Not In The Manner We Are Now Considering); She Will Help To Show What It Means.

Philosophy

Mean

Doe

For Prayer Is Request. The Essence Of Request, As Distinct From Compulsion, Is That It May Or May Not Be Granted.

Prayer

Essence

May

I Cannot Speak For The Way God Deals With Others; I Only Know How He Deals With Me Personally.

Way

Speak

Deals

Now Is Our Chance To Choose The Right Side. God Is Holding Back To Give Us That Chance. It Won't Last Forever. We Must Take It Or Leave It.

Wisdom

Giving

Forever

He Produced Mainly Three Results: Hatred, Terror, Adoration.

Hatred

Three

Results

“who Are You?” One Who Has Waited Long For You To Speak.

Long

Speak

Of Course God Does Not Consider You Hopeless. If He Did, He Would Not Be Moving You To Seek Him (and He Obviously Is)... Continue Seeking Him With Seriousness. Unless He Wanted You, You Would Not Be Wanting Him.

Moving

Doe

Hopeless

If We Really Think That Home Is Elsewhere And That This Life Is A Wandering To Find Home, Why Should We Not Look Forward To The Arrival?

Death

Home

Thinking

Unless I Believe In God, I Cannot Believe In Thought: So I Can Never Use Thought To Disbelieve In God.

Believe

Use

I Can

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

Who Can Endure A Doctrine Which Would Allow Only Dentists To Say Whether Our Teeth Were Aching, Only Cobblers To Say Whether Our Shoes Hurt Us, And Only Governments To Tell Us Whether We Were Being Well Governed?

Hurt

Government

Shoes

Each Time You Fall He'll Pick You Up. He Knows Your Own Efforts Are Never Going To Bring You Anywhere Near Perfection

Fall

Perfection

Effort

I Cannot Understand How A Man Can Appear In Print Claiming To Disbelieve Everything That He Presupposes When He Puts On The Surplice. I Feel It Is A Form Of Prostitution.

Men

Prostitution

Form

To Make Christianity A Private Affair While Banishing All Privacy Is To Relegate It To The Rainbow's End Or The Greek Calends.

Rainbow

Greek

Privacy

You People Have No Imagination!

People

Imagination

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

Names

World

Should

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

Really Great Moral Teachers Never Do Introduce New Moralities: It Is Quacks And Cranks Who Do That.... The Real Job Of Every Moral Teacher Is To Keep On Bringing Us Back, Time After Time, To The Old Simple Principles Which We Are All So Anxious Not To See; Like Bringing A Horse Back And Back To The Fence It Has Refused To Jump Or Bringing A Child Back And Back To The Bit In Its Lesson That It Wants To Shirk.

Teacher

Horse

Jobs

Edmund, Who Was Becoming A Nastier Person Every Minute, Thought That He Had Scored A Great Success, And Went On At Once To Say, 'there She Goes Again. What's The Matter With Her?

Matter

Becoming

Great Success

For The Wise Men Of Old The Cardinal Problem Had Been How To Conform The Soul To Reality. For Magic And Applied Science Alike The Problem Is How To Subdue Reality To The Wishes Of Men.

Wise

Reality

Men

A Sum Can Be Put Right: But Only By Going Back Till You Find The Error And Working It Afresh From That Point, Never By Simply Going On.

Christian

Inspiration

Errors

You Too? I Thought I Was The Only One.

Friendship

Funny Best Friend

Real Friends

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

We Have On The One Hand A Desperate Need; Hunger, Sickness, And The Dread Of War. We Have, On The Other, The Conception Of Something That Might Meet It: Omnicompetent Global Technocracy. Are Not These The Ideal Opportunity For Enslavement? This Is How It Has Entered Before; A Desperate Need (real Or Apparent) In The One Party, A Power (real Or Apparent) To Relieve It, In The Other.

Real

War

Party

Do Not By Any Means Destroy Yourself, For If You Live You May Yet Have Good Fortune, But All The Dead Are Dead Like.

Mean

May

Fortune

Fine Feelings, New Insights, Greater Interest In ʿreligionʾ Mean Nothing Unless They Make Our Actual Behavior Better.

Mean

Feelings

Behavior

Our Prayers For Others Flow More Easily Than Those For Ourselves. This Shows We Are Made To Live By Charity.

Prayer

Helping Others

Giving

If God Is Love, He Is, By Definition, Something More Than Mere Kindness.

Kindness

Definitions

God Is Love

Anger Is The Fluid Love Bleeds When Cut.

Friendship

Cutting

Friendship Love

The Intelligentsia (scientists Apart) Are Losing All Touch With, And All Influence Over, Nearly The Whole Human Race. Our Most Esteemed Poets And Critics Are Read By Our Most Esteemed Critics And Poets (who Don't Usually Like Them Much) And Nobody Else Takes Any Notice. An Increasing Number Of Highly Literate People Simply Ignore What The 'highbrows' Are Doing. It Says Nothing To Them. The Highbrows In Return Ignore And Insult Them.

Race

Numbers

America

A Man May Have To Die For Our Country: But No Man Must, In Any Exclusive Sense, Live For His Country. He Who Surrenders Himself Without Reservation To The Temporal Claims Of A Nation, Or A Party, Or A Class Is Rendering To Caesar That Which, Of All Things, Most Emphatically Belongs To God: Himself.

Country

Party

Men

But As For Lucy, She Was Always Gay And Golden-haired, And All Princes In Those Parts Desired Her To Be Their Queen, And Her Own People Called Her Queen Lucy The Valiant.

Queens

Gay

People

She's The Sort Of Woman Who Lives For Others - You Can Tell The Others By Their Hunted Expression.

Sarcastic

Women

Expression

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.

Earth

Bows

Narnia

Feelings, And Feelings, And Feelings. Let Me Try Thinking Instead.

Thinking

Feelings

Trying

Hope Is One Of The Theological Virtues. This Means That A Continual Looking Forward To The Eternal World Is Not (as Some Modern People Think) A Form Of Escapism Or Wishful Thinking, But One Of The Things A Christian Is Meant To Do. It Does Not Mean That We Are To Leave The Present World As It Is. If You Read History You Will Find That The Christians Who Did Most For The Present World Were Just Those Who Thought Most Of The Next.

Christian

Mean

Thinking

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.

Grief

Thinking

Frustration

The Present Is The Only Time In Which Any Duty May Be Done Or Grace Received.

Time

Grace

Done

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.

Love You

Brain

Use

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.

Book

Reading

Age

No Thanks," Said Digory, "i Don't Know That I Care Much About Living On And On After Everyone I Know Is Dead. I'd Rather Live An Ordinary Time And Die And Go To Heaven.

Heaven

Care

Ordinary

The Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do Is To Take Any One Impulse Of Your Own Nature And Set It Up As The Thing You Ought To Follow At All Costs. There Is Not One Of Them Which Will Not Make Us Into Devils If We Set It Up As An Absolute Guide. You Might Think Love Of Humanity In General Was Safe, But It Is Not. If You Leave Out Justice You Will Find Yourself Breaking Agreements And Faking Evidence In Trials "for The Sake Of Humanity", And Become In The End A Cruel And Treacherous Man.

Men

Thinking

Justice

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

Mother

Wisdom

Children

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

Inspirational

Life

Spiritual

I Am Only Trying To Call Attention To A Fact; The Fact That This Year, Of This Month, Or, More Likely, This Very Day, We Have Failed To Practice Ourselves The Kind Of Behaviour We Expect From Other People.

Years

Practice

People

Many People Think Their Prayers Are Never Answered Because It Is The Answered Ones They Forget.

Prayer

Thinking

People

Non-christians Seem To Think That The Incarnation Implies Some Particular Merit Or Excellence In Humanity. But Of Course It Implies Just The Reverse: A Particular Demerit And Depravity. No Creature That Deserved Redemption Would Need To Be Redeemed. They That Are Whole Need Not The Physician. Christ Died For Men Precisely Because Men Are Not Worth Dying For; To Make Them Worth It.

Christian

Men

Thinking

There Is No Use Saying You Chose To Lie Down When It Has Become Impossible To Stand Up.

Lying

Use

Impossible

We Have A Strange Illusion That Mere Time Cancels Sin.

Strange

Sin

Illusion

Now The Story Of Christ Is Simply A True Myth: A Myth Working On Us The Same Way As The Others, But With This Tremendous Difference That It Really Happened: And One Must Be Content To Accept It In The Same Way, Remembering That It Is God’s Myth Where The Others Are Men’s Myths: I.e., The Pagan Stories Are God Expressing Himself Through The Minds Of Poets, Using Such Images As He Found There, While Christianity Is God Expressing Himself Through What We Call 'real Things'.

Real

Men

Differences

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

Looks

Christ

Thrown

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

Temperance Referred Not Abstaining, But Going The Right Length And No Further...of Course It May Be The Duty Of A Particular Christian, Or Any Christian, At A Particular Time, To Abstain From Strong Drink, Either Because He Is The Sort Of Man Who Cannot Drink At All Without Drinking Too Much, Or Because He Wants To Give The Money To The Poor, Or Because He Is With People Who Are Inclined To Drunkenness And Must Not Encourage Them By Drinking Himself. But The Whole Point He Is Abstaining, For A Good Reason, From Something He Does Not Condemn And Which He Likes To See Other People Enjoying.

Christian

Strong

Drinking

Never Exaggerate. Never Say More Than You Really Mean.

Mean

Really Mean

I Seemed To Hear God Saying, "put Down Your Gun And We'll Talk.

Gun

I Am A Product Of Endless Books. My Father Bought All The Books He Read And Never Got Rid Of Any Of Them. There Were Books In The Study, Books In The Drawing Room, Books In The Cloakroom, Books (two Deep) In The Great Bookcase On The Landing, Books In A Bedroom, Books Piled As High As My Shoulder In The Cistern Attic...in The Seemingly Endless Rainy Afternoons I Took Volume After Volume From The Shelves. I Had Always The Same Certainty Of Finding A Book That Was New To Me As A Man Who Walks Into A Field Has Of Finding A New Blade Of Grass.

Father

Book

Men

If Education Is Beaten By Training, Civilization Dies.

Civilization

Training

Beaten

There Have Been Men Before Who Got So Interested In Proving The Existence Of God That They Came To Care Nothing For God Himself, As If The Good Lord Had Nothing To Do But To Exist. There Have Been Some Who Were So Preoccupied With Spreading Christianity That They Never Gave A Thought To Christ.

Men

Care

Christianity

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

Giving

Desire

Needs

The Divine Nature Wounds And Perhaps Destroys Us Merely By Being What It Is.

Divine

Divine Nature

Wounds

There Is A Difficulty About Disagreeing With God. He Is The Source From Which All Your Reasoning Power Comes: You Could Not Be Right And He Wrong Any More Than A Stream Can Rise Higher Than Its Own Source. When You Are Arguing Against Him You Are Arguing Against The Very Power That Makes You Able To Argue At All: It Is Like Cutting Off The Branch You Are Sitting On.

Cutting

Able

Sitting

[milton's] Argument Is (a) St. Augustine Was Wrong In Thinking God's Only Purpose In Giving Adam A Female, Instead Of A Male, Companion, Was Copulation. For (b) There Is A "peculiar Comfort" In The Society Of Man And Woman "beside, (i.e. In Addition To, Apart From) The Genial Bed"; And (c) We Know From Scripture That Something Analogous To "play" Or "slackening The Cords" Occurs Even In God. That Is Why The Song Of Songs Describes A Thousand Raptures...far On The Hither Side Of Carnal Enjoyment.

Song

Men

Thinking

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

At All Ages, If [fantasy And Myth] Is Used Well By The Author And Meets The Right Reader, It Has The Same Power: To Generalize While Remaining Concrete, To Present In Palpable Form Not Concepts Or Even Experiences But Whole Classes Of Experience, And To Throw Off Irrelevancies. Bat At Its Best It Can Do More; It Can Give Us Experiences We Have Never Had And Thus, Instead Of 'commenting On Life,' Can Add To It.

Class

Giving

Age

100 Per Cent Of Us Die, And The Percentage Cannot Be Increased.

Death

Percentages

Cents

We Seek An Enlargement Of Our Being. We Want To Be More Than Ourselves . . . We Want To See With Other Eyes, To Imagine With Other Imaginations, To Feel With Other Hearts, As Well As With Our Own . . . We Demand Windows.

Life

Heart

Eye

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

You Cannot Go On 'explaining Away' For Ever: You Will Find That You Have Explained Explanation Itself Away. You Cannot Go On 'seeing Through' Things For Ever. The Whole Point Of Seeing Through Something Is To See Something Through It.

Wisdom

Philosophy

Goes On

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

Know Me

Knows

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.

Book

Mean

Stories

The Human Heart Is Not Unchanging (nay, Changes Almost Out Of Recognition In The Twinkling Of An Eye).

Heart

Eye

Recognition

If We Accept Heaven We Shall Not Be Able To Retain Even The Smallest And Most Intimate Souvenirs Of Hell.

Heaven

Able

Hell

...this New Idea Of Cure Instead Of Punishment, So Humane In Seeming, Had In Fact Deprived The Criminal Of All Rights And By Taking Away The Name Punishment Made The Thing Infinite.

Rights

Punishment

Names

He Who Has God And Everything Else Has No More Than He Who Has God Only.

God

Christian

Theologian

As For All I Can Tell, The Only Difference Is That What Many See We Call A Real Thing, And What Only One Sees We Call A Dream.

Dream

Real

Differences

The Process Of Growing Up Is To Be Valued For What We Gain, Not For What We Lose.

Growing Up

Gains

Process

You Never Know How Much You Really Believe Anything Until Its Truth Of Falsehood Becomes A Matter Of Life And Death To You. It Is Easy To Say You Believe A Rope To Be Strong And Sound As Long As You Are Merely Using It To Cord A Box. But Suppose You Had To Hang By That Rope Over A Precipice. Wouldn't You Then First Discover How Much You Really Trusted It?

Strong

Believe

Life And Death

Man Must Endure His Going Hence.

Tombstone

Men

Endure

Our Heavenly Father Has Provided Many Delightful Inns For Us Along Our Journey, But He Takes Great Care To See That We Do Not Mistake Any Of Them For Home.

Father

Mistake

Home

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

Firsts

Put First Things First

First Things First

Where, Except In The Present, Can The Eternal Be Met?

Mets

Eternal

Before God Closed In On Me, I Was Offered What Now Appears A Moment Of Wholly Free Choice. But I Feel My Decision Was Not So Important. I Was The Object Rather Than The Subject In This Affair.

Decision

Choices

Important

A Creature Revolting Against A Creator Is Revolting Against The Source Of His Own Powers-including Even His Power To Revolt...it Is Like The Scent Of A Flower Trying To Destroy The Flower.

Atheist

Flower

Atheism

God Whispers In Our Pleasures, But Shouts In Our Pain.

Pain

Pleasure

Pain And Pleasure

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

Ifs

You Can't Get A Cup Of Tea Large Enough Or A Book Long Enough To Suit Me.

Book

Reading

Long

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

Devil

Can Not

In Worship, God Imparts Himself To Us.

Prayer

Worship

Worship God

You Must Be Asking Which Door Is The True One; Not Which Pleases You Best

Doors

Asking

Denominations

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

Soul

Body

Happens

No Man Who Values Originality Will Ever Be Original. But Try To Tell The Truth As You See It, Try To Do Any Bit Of Work As Well As It Can Be Done For The Work's Sake, And What Men Call Originality Will Come Unsought.

Men

Trying

Done

It Is A Good Rule After Reading A New Book, Never To Allow Yourself Another New One Till You Have Read An Old One In Between.

Inspirational

Book

Reading

I Can Imagine No Man Who Will Look With More Horror On The End Than A Conscientious Revolutionary Who Has, In A Sense Sincerely, Been Justifying Cruelties And Injustices Inflicted On Millions Of His Contemporaries By The Benefits Which He Hopes To Confer On Future Generations: Generations Who, As One Terrible Moment Now Reveals To Him, Were Never Going To Exist. Then He Will See The Massacres, The Faked Trials, The Deportations, To Be All Ineffaceably Real, An Essential Part, His Part, In The Drama That Has Just Ended: While The Future Utopia Had Never Been Anything But A Fantasy.

Real

Drama

Men

You Can't Analyze God. He Is Too Awesome, Too Big, Too Mysterious.

Mysterious

Bigs

We All Agree That Forgiveness Is A Beautiful Idea Until We Have To Practice It.

Beautiful

Forgiveness

Practice

Things Always Work According To Their Nature.

It Is Better To Forget About Yourself Altogether.

Forget

About Yourself

Human Beings, All Over The Earth, Have This Curious Idea That They Ought To Believe In A Certain Way, And Can't Really Get Rid Of It.

Wisdom

Believe

Ideas

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

Lions

Narnia

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe

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

He Thinks Great Folly, Child,' Said Aslan. "this World Is Bursting With Life For These Few Days Because The Song With Which I Called It Into Life Still Hangs In The Air And Rumbles In The Ground. It Will Not Be So For Long. But I Cannot Tell That To This Old Sinner, And I Cannot Comfort Him Either; He Has Made Himself Unable To Hear My Voice. If I Spoke To Him, He Would Hear Only Growlings And Roarings. Oh, Adam's Son, How Cleverly You Defend Yourself Against All That Might Do You Good!

Song

Children

Thinking

My Son, By All Means Desist From Kicking The Venerable And Enlightened Vizier: For As A Costly Jewel Retains Its Value Even If Hidden In A Dung-hill, So Old Age And Discretion Are To Be Respected Even In The Vile Persons Of Our Subjects. Desist Therefore, And Tell Us What You Desire And Propose.

Mean

Son

Jewels

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.

Heart

Men

Doors

If And When A Horror Turns Up You Will Then Be Given Grace To Help You. I Don't Think One Is Usually Given It In Advance. "give Us Our Daily Bread" (not An Annuity For Life) Applies To Spiritual Gifts Too; The Little Daily Support For The Daily Trial. Life Has To Be Taken Day By Day And Hour By Hour.

Spiritual

Taken

Thinking

A Noble Hunger, Long Unsatisfied, Met At Last Its Proper Food.

Sweet

Long

Noble

If You Do Not Take The Distinction Between Good And Bad Very Seriously, Then It Is Easy To Say That Anything You Find In This World Is A Part Of God. But, Of Course, If You Think Some Things Really Bad, And God Really Good, Then You Cannot Talk Like That. You Must Believe That God Is Separate From The World And That Some Of The Things We See In It Are Contrary To His Will.

Believe

Thinking

World

God Has Paid Us The Intolerable Compliment Of Loving Us, In The Deepest, Most Tragic, Most Inexorable Sense.

Compliment

Tragic

Inexorable

I Do Not Expect Old Heads On Young Shoulders.

Shoulders

Young

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

Inspirational

Despair

Christ

It Is Often Little Things That Are Hardest To Stand.

Littles

Little Things

Hardest

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

Judging

Choices

Action

What Assurance Have We That Our Masters Will Or Can Keep The Promise Which Induced Us To Sell Ourselves? Let Us Not Be Deceived By Phrases About 'man Taking Charge Of His Own Destiny'. All That Can Really Happen Is That Some Men Will Take Charge Of The Destiny Of The Others. They Will Be Simply Men; None Perfect; Some Greedy, Cruel And Dishonest. The More Completely We Are Planned The More Powerful They Will Be. Have We Discovered Some New Reason Why, This Time, Power Should Not Corrupt As It Has Done Before?

Powerful

Destiny

Men

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

Two

Combination

Acquire

Man, Even Now, Can Do Wonders To Animals: My Cat And Dog Live Together In My House And Seem To Like It. It May Have Been One Of Man's Functions To Restore Peace To The Animal World, And If He Had Not Joined The Enemy He Might Have Succeeded In Doing So To An Extent Now Hardly Imaginable.

Dog

Cat

Animal

For Pride Is Spiritual Cancer: It Eats Up The Very Possibility Of Love, Or Contentment, Or Even Common Sense.

Spiritual

Cancer

Pride

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

Very Often The Only Way To Get A Quality In Reality Is To Start Behaving As If You Had It Already.

Reality

Quality

Way

But Suppose You Struggle Through To The Good And Find That It Also Is Dreadful? How If Food Itself Turns Out To Be The Very Thing You Can't Eat, And Home The Very Place You Can't Live, And Your Very Comforter The Person Who Makes You Uncomfortable? Then, Indeed, There Is No Rescue Possible: The Last Card Has Been Played.

Struggle

Home

Cards

Do Not Look Sad. We Shall Meet Soon Again." "please, Aslan", Said Lucy,"what Do You Call Soon?" "i Call All Times Soon" Said Aslan; And Instantly He Was Vanished Away.

Looks

Said

All Time

If You Have A Religion It Must Be Cosmic.

Omnipotence

Cosmic

Ifs

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

Reality

Feet

Shadow

Talk To Me About The Truth Of Religion And I'll Listen Gladly. Talk To Me About The Duty Of Religion And I'll Listen Submissively. But Don't Come Talking To Me About The Consolations Of Religion Or I Shall Suspect That You Don't Understand.

Wisdom

Grief

Talking

Love Is Something More Stern And Splendid Than Mere Kindness.

Inspirational

Kindness

Love Is

What Do People Mean When They Say, 'i Am Not Afraid Of God Because I Know He Is Good'? Have They Never Even Been To A Dentist?

Mean

People

Dentist

No, I Don’t Wish I Knew Heaven Was Like The Picture In My Great Divorce, Because, If We Knew That, We Should Know It Was No Better. The Good Things Even Of This World Are Far Too Good Ever To Be Reached By Imagination. Even The Common Orange, You Know: No One Could Have Imagined It Before He Tasted It. How Much Less Heaven.

Divorce

Orange

Imagination

A Man Can Eat His Dinner Without Understanding Exactly How Food Nourishes Him. A Man Can Accept What Christ Has Done Without Knowing How It Works: Indeed, He Certainly Would Not Know How It Works Until He Has Accepted It.

Men

Knowing

Understanding

When An Artist Is In The Strict Sense Working, He Of Course Takes Into Account The Existing Tastes, Interests And Capacity Of His Audience. These No Less Than The Language , The Marble, The Paint, Are Part Of His Aw Material.; To Be Used, Tamed, Sublimated, Not Ignored Or Defied. Haughty Indifference To Them Is Not Genius, It Is Laziness And Incompetence.

Artist

Culture

Genius

Of Course It Should Be Pointed Out That, Though All Salvation Is Through Jesus, We Need Not Conclude That He Cannot Save Those Who Have Not Explicitly Accepted Him In This Life.

Jesus

Needs

Accepted

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.

Player

Thinking

Games

Believe In God Like You Believe In The Sunrise. Not Because You Can See It, But Because You Can See All It Touches.

Believe

Sunrise

Like You

Better To Be Miserable With Her Than Happy Without Her. Let Our Hearts Break Provided They Break Together. If The Voice Within Us Does Not Say This It Is Not The Voice Of Eros.

Heart

Voice

Religion

The Mark Of Friendship Is Not That Help Will Be Given When The Pinch Comes (of Course It Will) But That, Having Been Given, It Makes No Difference At All.

Differences

Helping

Given

Love Is Never Wasted, For Its Value Does Not Rest Upon Reciprocity.

Love Is

Doe

Reciprocity

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.

Children

Men

Reader

If Our Deepest Desires Cannot Be Satisfied In This World, Then We Must Have Been Made For Another World.

Desire

World

Made

On Many Questions And Specially In View Of The Marriage Bed, The Puritans Were The Indulgent Party, . . . They Were Much More Chestertonian Than Their Adversaries. The Idea That A Puritan Was A Repressed And Repressive Person Would Have Astonished Sir Thomas More And Luther About Equally.

Party

Views

Ideas

I Don't Want Him To Live Forever, And I Know That He's Not Going To Live Forever Whether I Want Him To Or Not.

Forever

Want

Knows

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

Running

Country

Men

She Stepped Out From Among Their Shifting Confusion Of Lovely Lights And Shadows. A Circle Of Grass, Smooth As A Lawn, Met Her Eyes, With Dark Trees Dancing All Around It. And Then --oh Joy! For He Was There: The Huge Lion, Shining White In The Moonlight, With His Huge Black Shadow Underneath Him.

Eye

Dark

Light

Ink Is The Great Cure For All Human Ills.

Ink

Cures

Humans

The Fundamental Laws Are In The Long Run Merely Statements That Every Event Is Itself And Not Some Different Event.

Running

Truth

Law

The Christian Does Not Think God Will Love Us Because We Are Good, But That God Will Make Us Good Because He Loves Us.

God

Christian

Thinking

When We Are Wholly His We Will Be More Ourselves Than Ever.

We Were Made Not Primarily That We May Love God, But That God May Love Us.

May

God Love

Made

We Must Get Over Wanting To Be Needed.

Needed

Get Over

It Doesn't Really Matter Whether You Grip The Arms Of The Dentist's Chair Or Let Your Hands Lie In Your Lap. The Drill Drills On.

Lying

Frustration

Hands

It Is A Dreadful Truth That The State Of Having To Depend Solely On God Is What We All Dread Most.... It Is Good Of Him To Force Us; But Dear Me, How Hard To Feel That It Is Good At The Time.

Force

States

Dread

Man Is Not The Centre. God Does Not Exist For The Sake Of Man. Man Does Not Exist For His Own Sake.

Men

Doe

Sake

We May Not Be Able To Get Certainty, But We Can Get Probability, And Half A Loaf Is Better Than No Bread.

Food

Science

Half

And That Is Enough To Raise Your Thoughts To What May Happen When The Redeemed Soul, Beyond All Hope And Nearly Beyond Belief, Learns At Last That She Has Pleased Him Whom She Was Created To Please. There Will Be No Room For Vanity Then. She Will Be Free From The Miserable Illusion That It Is Her Doing. With No Taint Of What We Should Now Call Self-approval She Will Most Innocently Rejoice In The Thing That God Has Made Her To Be, And The Moment Which Heals Her Old Inferiority Complex Forever Will Also Drown Her Pride… Perfect Humility Dispenses With Modesty.

Humility

Pride

Vanity

No Good Work Is Done Anywhere Without Aid From The Father Of Lights.

Inspirational

Father

Light

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

We Can Never Know What Might Have Been But What Is To Come Is Another Matter Entirely

Why You Fool, It's The Educated Reader Who Can Be Gulled. All Our Difficulty Comes With The Others. When Did You Meet A Workman Who Believes The Papers? He Takes It For Granted That They're All Propaganda And Skips The Leading Articles....he's Our Problem. We Have To Recondition Him. But The Educated Public, The People Who Read The High-brow Weeklies, Don't Need Reconditioning. They're All Right Already. They'll Believe Anything.

Education

Believe

People

To See, In Some Measure, Like God. His Love And His Knowledge Are Not Distinct From One Another, Not From Him. We Could Almost Say He Sees Because He Loves, And Therefore Loves Although He Sees.

His Love

I Wonder Do The Gods Know What It Feels Like To Be A Man.

Men

Wonder

God Knows

We Must Show Our Christian Colors, If We Are To Be True To Jesus Christ. We Cannot Remain Silent Or Concede Everything Away.

Christian

Jesus

Color

Inner Silence Is For Our Race A Difficult Achievement. There Is A Chattering Part Of The Mind Which Continues, Until It Is Corrected, To Chatter On Even In The Holiest Places.

Race

Silence

Achievement

If Tribulation Is A Necessary Element In Redemption, We Must Anticipate That It Will Never Cease Till God Sees The World To Be Either Redeemed Or No Further Redeemable.

Elements

Redemption

World

He Is Not The Soul Of Nature, Nor Any Part Of Nature. He Inhabits Eternity: He Dwells In A High And Holy Place: Heaven Is His Throne, Not His Vehicle, Earth Is His Footstool, Not His Vesture. One Day He Will Dismantle Both And Make A New Heaven And Earth. He Is Not To Be Identified Even With The 'divine Spark' In Man. He Is 'god And Not Man.

Men

Heaven

Soul

God Has Infinite Attention, Infinite Leisure To Spare For Each One Of Us. He Doesn't Have To Take Us In The Line. You're As Much Alone With Him As If You Were The Only Thing He'd Ever Created.

Attention

Lines

Leisure

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

Names

Voice

Feelings

You Would Not Call A Man Humane For Ceasing To Set Mousetraps If He Did So Because He Believed There Were No Mice In The House.

Wisdom

Men

House

To The Glistening Eastern Sea, I Give You Queen Lucy, The Valiant. To The Great Western Wood, King Edmund The Just. To The Radiant Southern Sun, Queen Susan, The Gentle; And To The Clear Northern Sky I Give You King Peter, The Magnificent. Once A King Or Queen Of Narnia, Always A King Or Queen. May Your Wisdom Grace Us 'til The Stars Rain Down From The Heavens.

Kings

Stars

Queens

Agnostics Talk Cheerfully Of Man's Search For God But They Might As Well Talk About The Mouse's Search For The Cat.

Cat

Men

Might

Before We Can Be Cured, We Must Want To Be Cured.

Want

I Would Not Know How To Advise A Man How To Write. It Is A Matter Of Talent And Interest. I Believe He Must Be Strongly Moved If He Is To Become A Writer.

Believe

Writing

Men

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

Wisdom

Hands

Would Be

You And I Who Still Enjoy Fairy Tales Have Less Reason To Wish Actual Childhood Back. We Have Kept Its Pleasures And Added Some Grown-up Ones As Well.

Childhood

Wish

Fairy Tale

Remember That All Worlds Draw To An End And That Noble Death Is A Treasure Which No One Is Too Poor To Buy.

Noble

World

Treasure

My Friendship You Shall Have, Leanred Man," Piped Reepicheep. "and Any Dwarf--or Giant---in The Army Who Does Not Give You Good Language Shall Have My Sword To Reckon With.

Army

Men

Dwarves

The Door On Which We Have Been Knocking All Our Lives Will Open At Last.

Inspirational

Doors

Lasts

Failures Are Finger Posts On The Road To Achievement.

Inspirational

Positive

Success

God, In The End, Gives People What They Most Want, Including Freedom From Himself. What Could Be More Fair?

Christian

People

Giving

Can A Mortal Ask Questions Which God Finds Unanswerable? Quite Easily, I Should Think. All Nonsense Questions Are Unanswerable.

God

Thinking

Demise

The Moment You Wake Up Each Morning, All Your Wishes And Hopes For The Day Rush At You Like Wild Animals. And The First Job Each Morning Consists In Shoving It All Back; In Listening To That Other Voice, Taking That Other Point Of View, Letting That Other, Larger, Stronger, Quieter Life Come Flowing In.

Inspirational

Morning

Jobs

Perhaps The Experience Had Been So Complete That Repetition Would Be Vulgarity - Like Asking To Hear The Same Symphony Twice In A Day.

Symphony

Would Be

Asking

The Problem Of Reconciling Human Suffering With The Existence Of A God Who Loves, Is Only Insoluble So Long As We Attach A Trivial Meaning To The Word "love", And Look On Things As If Man Were The Centre Of Them. Man Is Not The Centre. God Does Not Exist For The Sake Of Man. Man Does Not Exist For His Own Sake. "thou Hast Created All Things, And For Thy Pleasure They Are And Were Created." We Were Made Not Primarily That We May Love God (though We Were Made For That Too) But That God May Love Us, That We May Become Objects In Which The Divine Love May Rest "well Pleased".

Love Is

Men

Long

We Must Learn By Experience To Avoid Either Trains Of Thought Or Social Situations Which For Us (not Necessarily For Everyone) Lead To Temptations. Like Motoring-don't Wait Till The Last Moment Before You Put On The Brakes But Put Them On, Gently And Quietly, While The Danger Is Still A Good Way Off.

Train Of Thought

Waiting

Temptation

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

We May Think God Wants Actions Of A Certain Kind, But God Wants People Of A Certain Kind.

Life

Wisdom

Thinking

Christ Offers Something For Nothing: He Even Offers Everything For Nothing.

Christ

Offers

Friendship, Then, Like The Other Natural Loves, Is Unable To Save Itself. In Reality, Because It Is Spiritual And Therefore Faces A Subtler Enemy, It Must, Even More Wholeheartedly Than They, Invoke The Divine Protection If It Hopes To Remain Sweet. For Consider How Narrow Its True Path Is. Is Must Not Become What The People Call A "mutual Admiration Society"; Yet If It Is Not Full Of Mutual Admiration, Of Appreciative Love, It Is Not Friendship At All.

Spiritual

Sweet

Reality

In The Same Way A Christian Is Not A Man Who Never Goes Wrong, But A Man Is Enabled To Repent And Pick Himself Up And Begin Over Again After Each Stumble--because The Christ-life Is Inside Him, Repairing Him All The Time, Enabling Him To Repeat (in Some Degree) The Kind Of Voluntary Death Which Christ Himself Carried Out." - Mere Christianity

Christian

Men

Degrees

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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