Quotes from C. S. Lewis

Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.

He's not safe, but he's good (referring to Aslan, the Lion, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

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

The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.

Tea should be taken in solitude...

As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.

And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

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.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.

[God] will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest chemist's shop.

I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.

When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.

You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

Eros will have naked bodies Friendship naked personalities.

Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.

The Future… something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.