Many things--such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly--are done worst when we try hardest to do them.


C.S. Lewis

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Many of the questions we ask God can't be answered directly, not because God doesn't know the answer...
N.T. WRIGHT
The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be don...
DONALD KNUTH
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surpr...
C.S. LEWIS
If we're going to object to depicting magic in books, then we are going to have to reject C.S. Lewis...
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Basically we have a tiny little gland in the middle of our brains that controls when we sleep and wh...
DR. MEIR KRYGER
What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to ...
RAY BRADBURY
The books of C.S. Lewis had a very profound, indirect effect on me.
J. I. PACKER
The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.
TANITH LEE
When we are at the worst times of our lives, when we are battling with something, or struggles, what...
RUSSELL WILSON
We still thought that we were the only two people in the world who were interested in the right kind...
PHILIP ZALESKI
So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.
ALFRED TENNYSON
The hardest part is trying to top the year before. So we try to do different things.
DAWN RISTOW
Each day I will accomplish one thing on my to do list.
LAILAH GIFTY AKITA
It's a lie to think that you are not good enough. It's a lie to think that you are not beautiful. It...
DISON ARNIBAL
We had so many dreams as children. Where do they go when we grow? Are they swallowed up by the munda...
HELEN HOLLICK
There are so many things to do when you have to do them all by yourself.
FRANK HSIEH
Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.
JIM BUTCHER
We are not wounded so deeply when betrayed by the things we hope for as when betrayed by things we t...
YUKIO MISHIMA
Without first setting your goals correctly, it is impossible to focus on a plan to achieve them. Tha...
MANI S. SIVASUBRAMANIAN
Always try to do something for the other fellow and you will be agreeably surprised how things come ...
CLAUDE M. BRISTOL
Always try to do something for the other fellow and you will be agreeably surprised how things come ...
CLAUDE M. BRISTOL
Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful than even _...
GEORGE MACDONALD
Many of the projects we undertake don't have our name attached to them, but it is more important to ...
CHAD MILLER
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible,...
CHARLES DICKENS
Their front four is very dominant. We're going to try to do just the basic things, try to get them t...
MARCUS VICK
The only thing that's been disrupted are sleep patterns around here. We've all been working 16 or 18...
DAVID CAMERON
Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unles...
NICK HORNBY
There are no pet stores that sell 9-foot sharks. You've got to get them some other way. We're going ...
JOHN HEWITT
If you love someone you must set them free like the wind and give them the respect they deserve.If y...
GARY F EVANS...
When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those lo...
ALFIE KOHN
There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don't try t...
MARIO PUZO
There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do.
ANAIS NIN
There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do.
ANAïS NIN
We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many i...
ERIC HOFFER
If invocations are done, they have to be, according to (a 1983) Supreme Court decision, such that th...
ANDREW ROSENKRANZ
Most of the builders seem to think what we want to do can be done, or are willing to try.
ANDRES DUANY
Your "Not To Do" list is also important.
MANI S. SIVASUBRAMANIAN
To be or not to be. That's not really a question.
JEAN-LUC GODARD
The real test of love is loving those who we feel are the hardest ones to love.
CRISS JAMI
The hardest and worst interview that I have ever done was with Frank Zappa.
NINA BLACKWOOD
We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence, the remarkable fact ...
ERIC HOFFER
When we allow great minds to sleep, we allow great things to sleep!
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
He was successful when we asked him to throw it. Portsmouth played an eight-man front all game and w...
BILL DAVIDSON
We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving Coke with ...
SUE MONK KIDD
Without a free trade agreement, no one, not national or foreign firms, will invest. We have many thi...
OSCAR ARIAS
They are complex. They do give you a lot of problems, and when you sit down and try to come up with ...
JOE HEACOCK
We are far from perfect but willing to be different.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
They are two of the hardest workers and hardest competitors on the team. We are going to miss their ...
RON VLASIN
Making a journey into C.S. Lewis' quotes is like a journey into the most beautiful floral valley whi...
JOEY TALLADINO
First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things
JOE ABERCROMBIE
But space shrinks when you get old, and things lose their wonder, and the wisest thing to do then is...
DEXTER PALMER
In my study, there are stacks of papers to grade, books I should have read & reviewed months ago...
JESS ROW
Destiny consist in the moments that we experienced, and not in the choices we have to do.
DANIEL MELGAçO
When we hear of people not surviving in this world it should make us more glad that we are alive .We...
GARY F EVANS...
Old things become new when slight modifications are done to them
SOTONYE ANGA
I do everything you can do ... all the exercises for your shoulder to try to get it as strong as pos...
JARET WRIGHT
Some day we will try
To do as many things as are possible
And perhaps we shall succeed at ...
JOHN ASHBERY
So much to do, so little done, such things to be.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR
So much to do, so little done, such things to be.
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
So much to do, so little done, such things to be.
LORD ALFRED TENNYSON
Their philosophy, in my opinion, was to get out to the voters, as many people as they could, and vis...
CLAY HARRIS
Love one another as Jesus loves you. Try to show kindness in all that you do. Be gentle and loving i...
ANONYMOUS
This is phase 2. Phase 1 was withholding certain things, such as downloads. But that wasn't going to...
JOE WILCOX
Unfortunately, when we run out of room, some of the sentimental items without monetary value, (such ...
LEE BAERLOCHER
It won't be anything I do. We will play as many kids as we can. We will try to develop as much depth...
BART BRUNER
Do I have the courage of being a ruthless man to myself with the complete knowledge on my manner or ...
FEREIDOON YAZDI
The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them
STEPHEN KING
The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them.
STEPHEN KING
When 2 loving hearts have to be apart due to some life circumstances - nobody is a winner or loser. ...
SVETLANA SHCHEDRINA | LUCKYOPTIMIST
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always asked to do things, and you are ...
TS (THOMAS STEARNS) ELIOT
The market is still waiting for HSBC results, which will have a big impact on the direction of the m...
ANDREW TO
Property shares had a technical rebound, but interest rate concerns will still affect properties unt...
ANDREW TO
Bank of China's results were quite good; double-digit growth can be taken as good results for a bank...
ANDREW TO
The index tried to challenge 18,000 but failed, so that triggered profit taking. Tokyo's slide also ...
ANDREW TO
Trading seems to be focusing on selective counters because investors are cautious amid interest rate...
ANDREW TO
We're seeing a minor technical rebound after Wall Street rebounded from two days of losses. The key ...
ANDREW TO
Some investors have returned to pick up the stock at bargain prices.
ANDREW TO
I think the take-up for the placement is not too good and other property developers may be discourag...
ANDREW TO
We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future.
ANDREW TO
I think there was some minor selling pressure on telecom stocks as the market continued to see a wea...
ANDREW TO
The question is, then, do we try to make things easy on ourselves or do we try to make things easy o...
ERWIN FRAND
The question is, then, do we try to make things easy on ourselves or do we try to make things easy o...
ERWIN FRAND
The question is, then, do we try to make things easy on ourselves or do we try to make things easy o...
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
I just won't sleep," I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.
JACK KEROUAC
When we are able to do something so easily, we regard such thing as simplicity; but simplicity is co...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we d...
C.S. LEWIS
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
JOAN KLEMPNER
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
JOAN KLEMPNER
Try not to do too many things at once. Know what you want, the number one thing today and tomorrow. ...
GEORGE ALLEN, SR.
Try not to do too many things at once. Know what you want, the number one thing today and tomorrow. ...
GEORGE ALLEN
Try not to do too many things at once. Know what you want, the number one thing today and tomorrow....
GEORGE ALLEN
The worst thing we could do, the worst thing, is to take things
HARRY THOMAS
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and ye...
GEORGE ELIOT
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and ye...
T.S. ELIOT
It's something that we want to do. We want to try to put as many guys as we can out there that give ...
BEN SIRMANS
The biggest breakthroughs in consciousness occur when things are difficult; when we have a choice to...
YEHUDA BERG
People say we have too many brands. We have too many brands if we try to do the same things with all...
MARK LANEVE
One of the worst things you can do is have a limited budget and try to do some big looking film. Tha...
ROGER CORMAN

More C.S. Lewis

Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, ...
C.S. LEWIS
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't mer...
C.S. LEWIS
There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them.
C.S. LEWIS
The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, ...
C.S. LEWIS
The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are
C.S. LEWIS
The fundamental laws are in the long run merely statements that every event is itself and not some d...
C.S. LEWIS
I have said that she had no face; but that meant she had a thousand faces
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of ...
C.S. LEWIS
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this ide...
C.S. LEWIS
When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest bette...
C.S. LEWIS
Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that ...
C.S. LEWIS
We turn first ter the bleedin' parallel quotations from Massinger and Shakespeare collocated by Guvn...
C.S. LEWIS
... the very last thing I want to do is to unsettle in the mind of any Christian, whatever his denom...
C.S. LEWIS
If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a wandering to find home, why should...
C.S. LEWIS
It is hard to have patience with people who say There is no death or Death doesn't matter. There is ...
C.S. LEWIS
What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.
C.S. LEWIS
The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to...
C.S. LEWIS
You can make anything by writing.
C.S. LEWIS
I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep sile...
C.S. LEWIS
It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have re...
C.S. LEWIS
Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found...
C.S. LEWIS
God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.
C.S. LEWIS
Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you st...
C.S. LEWIS
Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as i...
C.S. LEWIS
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. LEWIS
No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – wo...
C.S. LEWIS
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can u...
C.S. LEWIS
I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.
C.S. LEWIS
Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.
C.S. LEWIS
A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slight...
C.S. LEWIS
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
C.S. LEWIS
Nos acercaremos a Dios no con el intento de evitar los sufrimientos inherentes a todos los amores, s...
C.S. LEWIS
Hence as the poet says: People in love cannot be moved by kindness, And opposition makes them feel l...
C.S. LEWIS
Not that we must always partake of [God's feast] solemnly. "God who made good laughter" forbid. It i...
C.S. LEWIS
The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the s...
C.S. LEWIS
Emerson has said, "When half-gods go, the gods arrive." That is a very doubtful maxim. Better say, "...
C.S. LEWIS
For most of us the true rivalry lies between the self and the human Other, not yet between the human...
C.S. LEWIS
But for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has bee...
C.S. LEWIS
I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this sort of patriotism, "But, sir, aren'...
C.S. LEWIS
Of all arguments against love, none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might l...
C.S. LEWIS
The loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even re...
C.S. LEWIS
You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher, or the Christian by staring in his eyes as...
C.S. LEWIS
Just as there are none good but God, and nothing good but goodness, so there are no loves but love i...
C.S. LEWIS
What I have called Appreciative love is no basic element in Affection. It usually needs absence or b...
C.S. LEWIS
Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for ...
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude o...
C.S. LEWIS
Once you have realised that the Frenchmen like café complet just as we like bacon and eggs—why, g...
C.S. LEWIS
The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the s...
C.S. LEWIS
La amistad nace en el momento en el que una persona le dice a la otra: ¿Qué? ¿Tú también ? Pens...
C.S. LEWIS
If ever the book which I am not going to write is written it must be the full confession by Christen...
C.S. LEWIS
A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot val...
C.S. LEWIS
Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that...
C.S. LEWIS
Eros, honoured without reservation and obeyed unconditionally, becomes a demon.
C.S. LEWIS
The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It w...
C.S. LEWIS
Affection and Eros were too obviously connected with our nerves, too obviously shared with the brute...
C.S. LEWIS
Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that...
C.S. LEWIS
If Affection is made the absolute sovereign of a human life the seeds will germinate. Love, having b...
C.S. LEWIS
He has impressed upon our natures or states—must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is th...
C.S. LEWIS
If you take nature as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you had already decided to le...
C.S. LEWIS
And as all Christians know there is another way of giving to God; every stranger whom we feed or clo...
C.S. LEWIS
Medicine labours to restore 'natural' structure or 'normal' function. But greed, egoism, self-decept...
C.S. LEWIS
Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a miser...
C.S. LEWIS
Every human love, at its height, has a tendency to claim for itself a divine authority. Its voice te...
C.S. LEWIS
Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appre...
C.S. LEWIS
To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life...
C.S. LEWIS
In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endur...
C.S. LEWIS
Sexual desire, without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the Beloved.
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue; but also (as they did not see) a school ...
C.S. LEWIS
Liking and Loves for the Sub-Human

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love ...
C.S. LEWIS
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will ...
C.S. LEWIS
We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physi...
C.S. LEWIS
El amor empieza a ser un demonio desde el momento en que comienza a ser un dios.
C.S. LEWIS
Mathematics effectively began when a few Greek friends got together to talk about numbers and lines ...
C.S. LEWIS
We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His b...
C.S. LEWIS
Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experien...
C.S. LEWIS
A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one...
C.S. LEWIS
What does seem to me poisonous, what breeds a type of patriotism that is pernicious if it lasts but ...
C.S. LEWIS
Amar é, sempre, ser vulnerável. Para que nunca se sofra com isso, aconselha-se não se amar algo, ...
C.S. LEWIS
Nothing in Man is either worse or better for being shared with the beasts.
C.S. LEWIS
Even if the two lovers are mature and experienced people who know that broken hearts heal in the end...
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need...
C.S. LEWIS
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping ...
C.S. LEWIS
When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has ...
C.S. LEWIS
It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fru...
C.S. LEWIS
Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.
C.S. LEWIS
While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwh...
C.S. LEWIS
Very few modern people think Friendship a love of comparable value or even a love at all.
C.S. LEWIS
It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious fr...
C.S. LEWIS
We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be
naturally loved.
C.S. LEWIS
The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It w...
C.S. LEWIS
We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he "wants a...
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude o...
C.S. LEWIS
Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed; to produce it in public ...
C.S. LEWIS
But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies ha...
C.S. LEWIS
In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself ...
C.S. LEWIS
Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for Go...
C.S. LEWIS
All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.
C.S. LEWIS
For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes ...
C.S. LEWIS
Those who cannot conceive of Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration ...
C.S. LEWIS
In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which ...
C.S. LEWIS
The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT ...
C.S. LEWIS
We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. They they become ...
C.S. LEWIS
Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appre...
C.S. LEWIS
We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for m...
C.S. LEWIS
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. ...
C.S. LEWIS
[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense i...
C.S. LEWIS
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted crea...
C.S. LEWIS
I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you wan...
C.S. LEWIS
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but becaus...
C.S. LEWIS
God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love ...
C.S. LEWIS
We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I
In a Berkshire bar. The big workman
Who had sa...
C.S. LEWIS
Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be ...
C.S. LEWIS
Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll h...
C.S. LEWIS
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as...
C.S. LEWIS
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make ev...
C.S. LEWIS
The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where th...
C.S. LEWIS
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will ...
C.S. LEWIS
Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden ...
C.S. LEWIS
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those t...
C.S. LEWIS
I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as...
C.S. LEWIS
You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know ...
C.S. LEWIS
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looki...
C.S. LEWIS
Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.
C.S. LEWIS
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civil...
C.S. LEWIS
The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea...
C.S. LEWIS
At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or ...
C.S. LEWIS
As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may thin...
C.S. LEWIS
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our nat...
C.S. LEWIS
Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.
C.S. LEWIS
In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.
C.S. LEWIS
Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?-Or at least, "Do you care about the s...
C.S. LEWIS
Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist...
C.S. LEWIS
People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often.
C.S. LEWIS
Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of ...
C.S. LEWIS
The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but t...
C.S. LEWIS
I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no sh...
C.S. LEWIS
He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no...
C.S. LEWIS
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ...
C.S. LEWIS
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun...
C.S. LEWIS
We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the b...
C.S. LEWIS
To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
C.S. LEWIS
The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good be...
C.S. LEWIS
If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explana...
C.S. LEWIS
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if y...
C.S. LEWIS
You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.
C.S. LEWIS
When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, ...
C.S. LEWIS
In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates o...
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one ...
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no ...
C.S. LEWIS
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
C.S. LEWIS
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
C.S. LEWIS
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up o...
C.S. LEWIS
There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he...
C.S. LEWIS
A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking d...
C.S. LEWIS
They tell me, Lord, that when I seem
To be in speech with you.
Since but one voice is heard, i...
C.S. LEWIS
Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences,...
C.S. LEWIS
Friendship, then, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is ...
C.S. LEWIS
The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I wa...
C.S. LEWIS
Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, ...
C.S. LEWIS
Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to av...
C.S. LEWIS
We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris-
ing generation. I am an oldster myself and...
C.S. LEWIS
Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike t...
C.S. LEWIS
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
C.S. LEWIS
And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, am...
C.S. LEWIS
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
C.S. LEWIS
Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon hi...
C.S. LEWIS
I desired dragons with a profound desire.
C.S. LEWIS
What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on wh...
C.S. LEWIS
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole w...
C.S. LEWIS
You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of...
C.S. LEWIS
But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do ...
C.S. LEWIS
You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect th...
C.S. LEWIS
Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Ind...
C.S. LEWIS
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot ...
C.S. LEWIS
The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.
C.S. LEWIS
We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shov...
C.S. LEWIS
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but becaus...
C.S. LEWIS
In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A y...
C.S. LEWIS
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies t...
C.S. LEWIS
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
C.S. LEWIS
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give...
C.S. LEWIS
Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he...
C.S. LEWIS
You are told to love your neighbour as yourself. How do you love yourself? When I look into my own m...
C.S. LEWIS
We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, Blessed are they that...
C.S. LEWIS
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explan...
C.S. LEWIS
All joy emphasises our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are...
C.S. LEWIS
A faith in culture is as bad as a faith in religion; both expressions imply a turning away from thos...
C.S. LEWIS
Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods.
C.S. LEWIS
What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong tu...
C.S. LEWIS
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precis...
C.S. LEWIS
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead ...
C.S. LEWIS
Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither.
C.S. LEWIS
“If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we ...
C.S. LEWIS
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possib...
C.S. LEWIS
If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of t...
C.S. LEWIS
Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, b...
C.S. LEWIS
I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of Admin. The gre...
C.S. LEWIS
The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epic...
C.S. LEWIS
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense ...
C.S. LEWIS
The thing is to rely on God. The time will come when you will regard all this misery as a small pric...
C.S. LEWIS