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The Very Lack Of Evidence Is Thus Treated As Evidence; The Absence Of Smoke Proves That The Fire Is Very Carefully Hidden...a Belief In Invisible Cats Cannot Be Logically Disproved Although It Does Tell Us A Good Deal About Those Who Hold It.

-C. S. Lewis

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The Very Lack Of

C. S. Lewis

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The Very Lack Of Evidence Is Thus Treated As Evidence; The Absence Of Smoke Proves That The Fire Is Very Carefully Hidden...a Belief In Invisible Cats Cannot Be Logically Disproved Although It Does Tell Us A Good Deal About Those Who Hold It.

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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.

For Christianity Is A Fighting Religion. It Thinks God Has Made The World- That Space And Time, Heat And Cold, And All The Colors And Tastes, And All The Animals And Vegetables, Are Things That God 'made Up Out Of His Head' As A Man Makes Up A Story. But It Also Thinks That A Great Many Things Have Gone Wrong With The World That God Made And That God Insists, And Insists Very Loudly, On Our Putting Them Right Again.

Part Of Every Misery Is, So To Speak, The Misery's Shadow Or Reflection: The Fact That You Don't Merely Suffer But Have To Keep On Thinking About The Fact That You Suffer. I Not Only Live Each Endless Day In Grief, But Live Each Day Thinking About Living Each Day In Grief.

Love, Having Become A God, Becomes A Demon.

Those Who Put Themselves In His Hands Will Become Perfect, As He Is Perfect- Perfect In Love, Wisdom, Joy, Beauty, Health, And Immortality. The Change Will Not Be Completed In This Life, For Death Is An Important Part Of The Treatment. How Far The Change Will Have Gone Before Death In Any Particular Christian Is Uncertain.

When I Have Learned To Love God Better Than My Earthly Dearest, I Shall Love My Earthly Dearest Better Than I Do Now.

Some Journeys Take Us Far From Home. Some Adventures Lead Us To Our Destiny.

Regarding The Debate About Faith And Works: It's Like Asking Which Blade In A Pair Of Scissors Is Most Important.

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.

If Devils Exist, Their First Aim Is To Give You An Anesthetic -- To Put You Off Your Guard. Only If That Fails, Do You Become Aware Of Them.

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.

Prayer Is Either A Sheer Illusion Or A Personal Contact Between Embryonic, Incomplete Persons (ourselves) And The Utterly Concrete Person.

By The Very Act Of Arguing, You Awake The Patient's Reason; And Once It Is Awake, Who Can Foresee The Result?

Naturally, Since I Myself Am A Writer, I Do Not Wish The Ordinary Reader To Read No Modern Books. But If He Must Read Only The New Or Only The Old, I Would Advise Him To Read The Old.

We Have Not Long To Live In Any Event. Let Us Spend What Is Left In Seeking The Unpeopled World Behind The Sunrise.

I Have Seen Landscapes . . . Which, Under A Particular Light, Make Me Feel That At Any Moment A Giant Might Raise His Head Over The Next Ridge.

The Student Is Half Afraid To Meet One Of The Great Philosophers Face To Face. He Feels Himself Inadequate And Thinks He Will Not Understand Him. But If He Only Knew, The Great Man, Just Because Of His Greatness, Is Much More Intelligible Than His Modern Commentator. The Simplest Student Will Be Able To Understand, If Not All, Yet A Very Great Deal Of What Plato Said; But Hardly Anyone Can Understand Some Modern Books On Platonism.

Free Will, Though It Makes Evil Possible, Also Makes Possible Any Love Or Goodness Or Joy Worth Having.

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

You Can’t Get Second Things By Putting Them First. You Get Second Things Only By Putting First Things First.

Put First Things First

First Things First

Besides Reasoning About Matters Of Fact, Men Also Make Moral Judgements.

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

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

After Each Failure, Ask Forgiveness, Pick Yourself Up, And Try Again. Very Often What God First Helps Us Toward Is Not The Virtue Itself But Just This Power Of Always Trying Again. For However Important Chastity (or Courage, Or Truthfulness, Or Any Other Virtue) May Be, This Process Trains Us In Habits Of The Soul Which Are More Important Still. It Cures Our Illusions About Ourselves And Teaches Us To Depend On God. We Learn, On The One Hand, That We Cannot Trust Ourselves Even In Our Best Moments, And, On The Other, That We Need Not Despair Even In Our Worst, For Our Failures Are Forgiven.

Far Overhead From Beyond The Veil Of Blue Sky Which Hid Them The Stars Sang Again; A Pure, Cold, Difficult Music. Then There Came A Swift Flash Like Fire (but It Burnt Nobody) Either From The Sky Or From The Lion Itself, And Every Drop Of Blood Tingled In The Children's Bodies, And The Deepest, Wildest Voice They Had Ever Heard Was Saying: "narnia, Narnia, Narnia, Awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be Walking Trees. Be Talking Beasts. Be Divine Waters.

One Road Leads Home And A Thousand Roads Lead Into The Wilderness.

Giving To The Poor Is An Essential Part Of Christian Morality.

There Is No Neutral Ground In The Universe. Every Square Inch, Every Split Second Is Claimed By God, And Counterclaimed By Satan.

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

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

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.

Giant Wimbleweather Burst Into One Of Those Not Very Intelligent Laughs To Which The Nicer Sort Of Giants Are So Liable. He Checked Himself At Once And Looked As Grace As A Turnip By The Time Reepicheep Discovered Where The Noise Came From.

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

If You Have Really Handed Yourself Over To Him, It Must Follow That You Are Trying To Obey Him. But Trying In A New Way, A Less Worried Way.

God Loves Us Not Because We're Lovable, Because He Is Love. Not Because He Needs To Receive, Because He Delights To Give.

There Have Been Men Before Now Who Got So Interested In Proving The Existence Of God That They Came To Care Nothing For God Himself.

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

What Do They Teach Them At These Schools?

Each New Power Won By Man Is A Power Over Man As Well. Each Advance Leaves Him Weaker As Well As Stronger.

Thought Provoking

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.

What We Have Been Told Is How We Men Can Be Drawn Into Christ-can Become Part Of That Wonderful Present Which The Young Prince Of The Universe Wants To Offer To His Father-that Present Which Is Himself And Therefore Us In Him. It Is The Only Thing We Were Made For. And There Are Strange, Exciting Hints In The Bible That When We Are Drawn In, A Great Many Other Things In Nature Will Begin To Come Right. The Bad Dream Will Be Over: It Will Be Morning.

Miracles Are For Beginners.

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.

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

Writing Is Like A 'lust,' Or Like 'scratching When You Itch.' Writing Comes As A Result Of A Very Strong Impulse, And When It Does Come, I For One Must Get It Out.

The Great Thing To Remember Is That Though Our Feelings Come And Go God's Love For Us Does Not.

Christian Inspirational

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.

The Long, Dull, Monotonous Years Of Middle-aged Prosperity Or Middle-aged Adversity Are Excellent Campaigning Weather For The Devil.

The Very Power Of [textbook Writers] Depends On The Fact That They Are Dealing With A Boy: A Boy Who Thinks He Is ‘doing’ His ‘english Prep’ And Has No Notion That Ethics, Theology, And Politics Are All At Stake. It Is Not A Theory They Put Into His Mind, But An Assumption, Which Ten Years Hence, Its Origin Forgotten And Its Presence Unconscious, Will Condition Him To Take One Side In A Controversy Which He Has Never Recognized As A Controversy At All.

We Have Failed To Practise Ourselves The Kind Of Behaviour We Expect From Other People.

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.

Of Course, We Are To Pray For Spiritual Awakening, And In Various Ways We Can Do Something Toward It. But We Must Remember That Neither Paul Nor Apollos Gives The Increase.

All I Am In Private Life Is A Literary Critic And Historian, That's My Job...and I'm Prepared To Say On That Basis If Anyone Thinks The Gospels Are Either Legends Or Novels, Then That Person Is Simply Showing His Incompetence As A Literary Critic. I've Read A Great Many Novels And I Know A Fair Amount About The Legends That Grew Up Among Early People, And I Know Perfectly Well The Gospels Are Not That Kind Of Stuff.

It Is A Serious Thing To Live In A Society Of Possible Gods And Goddesses. To Remember That The Dullest, And Most Uninteresting Person You Can Talk To May One Day Be A Creature Which, If You Saw It Now, You Would Be Strongly Tempted To Worship.

Well,' Said Ransom, 'if It Is A Delusion, It's A Pretty Stubborn One.

When We Lose One Blessing, Another Is Often Most Unexpectedly Given In Its Place.

To Love At All Is To Be Vulnerable. Love Anything, And Your Heart Will Most Certainly Be Wrung And Possibly Broken ... The Only Place Outside Heaven Where You Can Be Perfectly Safe From All The Dangers And Perturbations Of Love Is Hell.

Once A King Or Queen Of Narnia, Always A King Or Queen Of Narnia.

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

I Was At This Time Living, Like So Many Atheists Or Antitheists, In A Whirl Of Contradictions. I Maintained That God Did Not Exist. I Was Also Very Angry With God For Not Existing. I Was Equally Angry With Him For Creating A World.

The Whole Journey Was Odd And Dream-like -- The Roaring Stream, The Wet Grey Grass, The Glimmering Cliffs Which They Were Approaching, And Always The Glorious, Silently Pacing Beast Ahead.

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.

Consciousness Is Either Inexplicable Illusion, Or Else Revelation.

Do You Not Know How Bashful Friendship Is? Friends - Comrades - Do Not Look At Each Other. Friendship Would Be Ashamed.

To Be A Christian Means To Forgive The Inexcusable Because God Has Forgiven The Inexcusable In You.

Here The Whole World (stars, Water, Air, And Field, And Forest, As They Were Reflected In A Single Mind) Like Cast Off Clothes Was Left Behind In Ashes, Yet With Hopes That She, Re-born From Holy Poverty, In Lenten Lands, Hereafter May Resume Them On Her Easter Day." (epitaph For Joy Gresham)

Anyone Who Endeavors To Be A Christian Will Soon Find His Intelligence Being Sharpened. You Are Embarking On Something That Is Going To Take The Whole Of You, Brains And All.

Men Propound Mathematical Theorems In Besieged Cities, Conduct Metaphysical Arguments In Condemned Cells, Make Jokes On The Scaffold, Discuss A New Poem While Advancing To The Walls Of Quebec, And Comb Their Hair At Thermopylae. This Is Not Panache; It Is Our Nature.

Mental Pain Is Less Dramatic Than Physical Pain, But It Is More Common And Also More Hard To Bear. The Frequent Attempt To Conceal Mental Pain Increases The Burden: It Is Easier To Say “my Tooth Is Aching” Than To Say “my Heart Is Broken.

Morality Or Duty Never Yet Made A Man Happy In Himself Or Dear To Others.

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

Heaven Is Reality Itself. All That Is Fully Real Is Heavenly. For All That Can Be Shaken Will Be Shaken And Only The Unshakeable Remains.

Children Are Not Deceived By Fairy-tales; They Are Often And Gravely Deceived By School-stories. Adults Are Not Deceived By Science-fiction ; They Can Be Deceived By The Stories In The Women's Magazines.

No One Can Teach Riding So Well As A Horse.

Practice Makes Perfect

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

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.

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.

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

More Like The Real Thing,' Said The Lord Digory Softly. - The Last Battle

The More Pride We Have, The More Other People’s Pride Irritates Us

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

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

In Great Literature, I Become A Thousand Different Men But Still Remain Myself.

I Could Never Have Gone Far In Any Science Because On The Path Of Every Science The Lion Mathematics Lies In Wait For You.

If The Universe Is So Bad...how On Earth Did Human Beings Ever Come To Attribute It To The Activity Of A Wise And Good Creator?

Awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be Walking Trees. Be Talking Beasts. Be Divine Waters.

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

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.

It Is The Magician's Bargain: Give Up Our Soul, Get Power In Return. But Once Our Souls, That Is, Ourselves, Have Been Given Up, The Power Thus Conferred Will Not Belong To Us. We Shall In Fact Be The Slaves And Puppets Of That To Which We Have Given Our Souls.

Be Good, Sweet Maid, And Don't Forget That This Involves Being As Clever As You Can.

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.

A Powerful Dragon Crying Its Eyes Out Under The Moon In A Deserted Valley Is A Sight And A Sound Hardly To Be Imagined.

When We See The Face Of God We Shall Know That We Have Always Known It. He Has Been A Party To, Has Made, Sustained And Moved Moment By Moment Within, All Our Earthly Experiences Of Innocent Love.

The Only Things We Can Keep Are The Things We Freely Give To God. What We Try To Keep For Ourselves Is Just What We Are Sure To Lose.

I Willingly Believe That The Damned Are, In One Sense, Successful, Rebels To The End; That The Doors Of Hell Are Locked On The Inside.

Every Story Of Conversion Is The Story Of A Blessed Defeat.

They Say, 'the Coward Dies Many Times'; So Does The Beloved. Didn't The Eagle Find A Fresh Liver To Tear In Prometheus Every Time It Dined?

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.

My Own Eyes Are Not Enough For Me...i Will See Through The Eyes Of Others. Reality, Even Seen Through The Eyes Of Many Is Not Enough...i Will See What Others Have Invented. Even The Eyes Of All Humanity Are Not Enough. I Regret That The Brutes Cannot Write Books. Very Gladly Would I Learn What Face Things Present To A Mouse Or A Bee. More Gladly Still Would I Perceive The Olfactory World Charged With All The Information And Emotion It Carries For A Dog.

Without The Aid Of Trained Emotions The Intellect Is Powerless Against The Animal Organism.

If Human Life Is In Fact Ordered By A Beneficent Being Whose Knowledge Of Our Real Needs And Of The Way In Which They Can Be Satisfied Infinitely Exceeds Our Own, We Must Expect A Priori That His Operations Will Often Appear To Us Far From Beneficent And Far From Wise, And That It Will Be Our Highest Prudence To Give Him Our Confidence In Spite Of This.

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

The Truth Is, Of Course, That What One Regards As Interruptions Are Precisely One's Life.

There Was Nothing Medieval People Liked Better, Or Did Better, Than Sorting Out And Tidying Up. Of All Our Modern Inventions I Suspect That They Would Most Have Admired The Card Index.

Don't Say It Was "delightful"; Make Us Say "delightful" When We've Read The Description.

Much Is Expected From Those To Whom Much Is Given.

Philanthropy Giving

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

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

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

Enemy-occupied Territory---that Is What This World Is. Christianity Is The Story Of How The Rightful King Has Landed, You Might Say Landed In Disguise, And Is Calling Us To Take Part In A Great Campaign Of Sabotage.

We Can Rest Contentedly In Our Sins And In Our Stupidities, And Anyone Who Has Watched Gluttons Shoveling Down The Most Exquisite Foods As If They Did Not Know What They Were Eating Will Admit That We Can Ignore Even Pleasure. But Pain Insists Upon Being Attended To. God Whispers To Us In Our Pleasures, Speaks In Our Consciences, But Shouts In Our Pains. It Is His Megaphone To Rouse A Deaf World.

What He Says, Even On His Knees, About His Own Sinfulness Is All Parrot Talk. At Bottom, He Still Believes He Has Run Up A Very Favorable Credit-balance In The Enemy's Ledger By Allowing Himself To Be Converted, And Thinks That He Is Showing Great Humility And Condescension In Going To Church With These 'smug', Commonplace Neighbors At All.

In Order That We Finite Beings May Apprehend The Emporer He Translates His Glory Into Multiple Forms - Into Stars, Woods, Waters, Beasts, And The Bodies Of Men.

You Asked For A Loving God: You Have One... The Consuming Fire Himself, The Love That Made The Worlds, Persistent As The Artist's Love For His Work And Despotic As A Man's Love For A Dog, Provident And Venerable As A Father's Love For A Child, Jealous, Inexorable, Exacting As Love Between The Sexes. How This Should Be, I Do Not Know: It Passes Reason To Explain Why Any Creatures, Not To Say Creatures Such As We, Should Have A Value So Prodigious In Their Creator's Eyes.

The Worldly Man Treats Certain People Kindly Because He 'likes' Them: The Christian, Trying To Treat Every One Kindly, Finds Him Liking More And More People As He Goes On - Including People He Could Not Even Have Imagined Himself Liking At The Beginning.

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.

And A Charge Of Lying Against Someone Whom You Have Always Found Truthful Is A Very Serious Thing; A Very Serious Thing Indeed.

When The Whole World Is Running Towards A Cliff, He Who Is Running In The Opposite Direction Appears To Have Lost His Mind.

We Meet No Ordinary People In Our Lives.

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

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.

Any Patch Of Sunlight In A Wood Will Show You Something About The Sun Which You Could Never Get From Reading Books On Astronomy. These Pure And Spontaneous Pleasures Are ‘patches Of Godlight’ In The Woods Of Our Experience.

Power To Translate Is The Test Of Having Really Understood One's Own Meaning.

While We Are Actually Subjected To Them, The 'moods' And 'spirits' Of Nature Point No Morals. Overwhelming Gaiety, Insupportable Grandeur, Sombre Desolation Are Flung At You. Make What You Can Of Them, If You Must Make At All. The Only Imperative That Nature Utters Is, 'look. Listen. Attend.

First Be Sure That You Know Exactly What You Want To Say. Then Be Sure You Have Said Exactly That.

All Shall Be Done, But It May Be Harder Than You Think.

Really, A Young Atheist Cannot Guard His Faith Too Carefully. Dangers Lie In Wait For Him On Every Side. You Must Not Do, You Must Not Even Try To Do, The Will Of The Father Unless You Are Prepared To "know Of The Doctrine." All My Acts, Desires, And Thoughts Were To Be Brought Into Harmony With Universal Spirit. For The First Time I Examined Myself With A Seriously Practical Purpose. And There I Found What Appalled Me; A Zoo Of Lusts, A Bedlam Of Ambitions, A Nursery Of Fears, A Harem Of Fondled Hatreds. My Name Was Legion.

Jesus Christ Did Not Say, 'go Into The World And Tell The World That It Is Quite Right.'

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.

Before We Can Be Cured We Must Want To Be Cured. Those Who Really Wish For Help Will Get It; But For Many Modern People Even The Wish Is Difficult.

In Science We Have Been Reading Only The Notes To A Poem; In Christianity We Find The Poem Itself.

Every Sin Is The Distortion Of An Energy Breathed Into Us - An Energy Which, If Not Thus Distorted, Would Have Blossomed Into One Of Those Holy Acts Whereof 'god Did It' And 'i Did It' Are Both True Descriptions.

Yes, Pride Is A Perpetual Nagging Temptation. Keep On Knocking It On The Head, But Don't Be Too Worried About It. As Long As One Knows One Is Proud, One Is Safe From The Worst Form Of Pride.

No Natural Feelings Are High Or Low, Holy Or Unholy, In Themselves. They Are All Holy When God's Hand Is On The Rein. They All Go Bad When They Set Up On Their Own And Make Themselves Into False Gods.

Isn't It Funny The Way Some Combinations Of Words Can Give You--almost Apart From Their Meaning--a Thrill Like Music?

Those Who Have Nothing Can Share Nothing; Those Who Are Going Nowhere Can Have No Fellow-travellers.

To The Ancients, Friendship Seemed The Happiest And Most Fully Human Of All Loves... The Modern World In Comparison, Ignores It.

A Real Desire To Believe All The Good You Can Of Others And To Make Others As Comfortable As You Can Will Solve Most Of The Problems.

But Courage, Child: We Are All Between The Paws Of The True Aslan.

A Society In Which Conjugal Infidelity Is Tolerated Must Always Be In The Long Run A Society Adverse To Women.

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.

The Game Is To Have Them All Running About With Fire Extinguishers When There Is A Flood, And All Crowding To That Side Of The Boat Which Is Already Nearly Gunwale Under.

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.

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

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

Nature Never Taught Me That There Exists A God Of Glory And Of Infinite Majesty. I Had To Learn That In Other Ways. But Nature Gave The Word Glory A Meaning For Me. I Still Do Not Know Where Else I Could Have Found One.

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.

Are The Gods Not Just?' 'oh No, Child. What Would Become Us Us If They Were?

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.

If Minds Are Wholly Dependent On Brains And Brains On Biochemistry, And Biochemistry (in The Long Run) On The Meaningless Flux Of The Atoms, I Cannot Understand How The Thought Of Those Minds Should Have Any More Significance Than The Sound Of The Wind In The Trees.

Christ Says, 'give Me All. I Don't Want So Much Of Your Time And So Much Of Your Money And So Much Of Your Work: I Want You.'

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

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

Some People Probably Think Of The Resurrection As A Desperate Last Moment Expedient To Save The Hero From A Situation Which Had Got Out Of The Author's Control.

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.

Fancy Sleeping On Air. I Wonder If Anyone's Done It Before. I Don't Suppose They Have. Oh, Bother—-scrubb Probably Has!

A Great Deal Of What Is Being Published By Writers In The Religious Tradition Is A Scandal And Is Actually Turning People Away From The Church. The Liberal Writers Who Are Continually Accommodating And Whittling Down The Truth Of The Gospel Are Responsible.

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!

The Very Nature Of Joy Makes Nonsense Of Our Common Distinction Between Having And Wanting.

You Cannot Study Pleasure In The Moment Of The Nuptial Embrace, Nor Repentance While Repenting, Nor Analyze The Nature Of Humour While Roaring With Laughter.

Bad Art Is Never Really Enjoyed In The Same Sense In Which Good Art Is Enjoyed. It Is Only "liked": It Never Startles, Prostrates, And Takes Captive.

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.

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.

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

We Read To Know We Are Not Alone.

When We Are Lost In The Woods, The Sight Of A Signpost Is A Great Matter.

The Happiness Which God Designs For His Higher Creatures Is The Happiness Of Being Freely, Voluntarily United To Him And To Each Other In An Ecstasy Of Love And Delight Compared With Which The Most Rapturous Love Between A Man And A Woman On This Earth Is Mere Milk And Water. And For That They Must Be Free.

Only The Skilled Can Judge The Skillfulness, But That Is Not The Same As Judging The Value Of The Result.

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.

Disobedience To Conscience Is Voluntary; Bad Poetry, On The Other Hand, Is Usually Not Made On Purpose.

The Knight Is A Man Of Blood And Iron, A Man Familiar With The Sight Of Smashed Faces And The Ragged Stumps Of Lopped-off Limbs; He Is Also A Demure, Almost A Maidenlike, Guest In Hall, A Gentle, Modest, Unobtrusive Man. He Is Not A Compromise Or Happy Mean Between Ferocity And Meekness; He Is Fierce To The Nth And Meek To The Nth.

Of All Tyrannies, A Tyranny Sincerely Exercised For The Good Of Its Victims May Be The Most Oppressive. It Would Be Better To Live Under Robber Barons Than Under Omnipotent Moral Busybodies. The Robber Baron's Cruelty May Sometimes Sleep, His Cupidity May At Some Point Be Satiated; But Those Who Torment Us For Our Own Good Will Torment Us Without End For They Do So With The Approval Of Their Own Conscience.

The Sun Looks Down On Nothing Half So Good As A Household Laughing Together Over A Meal.

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.

It Is A Happy Moment When Our Desire Crosses With The Will Of Heavenly Father.

No Doubt Those Who Really Founded Modern Science Were Usually Those Whose Love Of Truth Exceeded Their Love Of Power.

The Gap Between Those Who Worship Different Gods Is Not So Wide As The Gap Between Those Who Worship And Those Who Don't.

The Task Of The Modern Educator Is Not To Cut Down Jungles, But To Irrigate Deserts.

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.

The Humans Live In Time But Our Enemy (god) Destines Them For Eternity.

Screwtape Letters

Oh, Lor!' Said The Boy, Sitting Down On The Grassy Bank At The Edge Of The Shrubbery And Very Quickly Getting Up Again Because The Grass Was Soaking Wet. His Name Was Unfortunately Eustace Scrubb But He Wasn't A Bad Sort.

As For Wrinkles--pshaw! Why Shouldn't We Have Wrinkles? Honorable Insignia Of Long Service In This Warfare.

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.

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.

We Poison The Wine As He Decants It Into Us; Murder A Melody He Would Play With Us As The Instrument...hence All Sin, Whatever Else It Is, Is Sacrilege.

Because God Created The Natural - Invented It Out Of His Love And Artistry - It Demands Our Reverence.

To Enter Heaven Is To Become More Human Than You Ever Succeeded In Being On Earth; To Enter Hell Is To Be Banished From Humanity. What Is Cast (or Casts Itself) Into Hell Is Not A Man: It Is 'remains.'

Faith, In The Sense In Which I Am Here Using The Word, Is The Art Of Holding On To Things Your Reason Has Once Accepted, In Spite Of Your Changing Moods.

If Christianity Was Something We Were Making Up, Of Course We Could Make It Easier. But It Is Not. We Cannot Compete, In Simplicity With People Who Are Inventing Religions. How Could We? We Are Dealing With Fact. Of Course Anyone Can Be Simple If He Has No Facts To Bother About.

The Harder You Tried Not To Think, The More You Thought.

The Opposite Of Love Is Not Hate, But Power

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.

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?

We Are Not Necessarily Doubting That God Will Do The Best For Us; We Are Wondering How Painful The Best Will Turn Out To Be.

The Enemy Wants To Bring The Man To A State Of Mind In Which He Could Design The Best Cathedral In The World, And Know It To Be The Best, And Rejoice In The Fact, Without Being Any More (or Less) Or Otherwise Glad At Having Done It Than He Would Be If It Had Been Done By Another. The Enemy Wants Him, In The End, To Be So Free From Any Bias In His Own Favour That He Can Rejoice In His Own Talents As Frankly And Gratefully As In His Neighbour's Talents--or In A Sunrise, An Elephant, Or A Waterfall.

Scripture Itself Is Not Systematic; The New Testament Shows The Greatest Variety. God Has Shown Us That He Can Use Any Instrument. Balaam's Ass, You Remember, Preached A Very Effective Sermon In The Midst Of His 'hee-haws.'

What We Want Is Not More Little Books About Christianity, But More Little Books By Christians On Other Subjects--with Their Christianity Latent.

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

If Conversion Makes No Improvements In A Man's Outward Actions Then I Think His 'conversion' Was Largely Imaginary.

God Is The Food Our Spirits Were Designed To Feed On.

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