“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.”
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C.S. Lewis
“I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”
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C.S. Lewis
“But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that is going to be Human and isn’t yet, or used to be Human once and isn’t now, or ought to be Human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”
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C.S. Lewis
“A great many of those who 'debunk' traditional...values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process”
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C.S. Lewis
“Caspian felt sure that he would hate the new Tutor, but when the new Tutor arrived about a week later he turned out to be the sort of person it is almost impossible not to like. He was the smallest, and also the fattest, man Caspian had ever seen. He had a long, silvery, pointed beard which came down to his waist, and his face, which was brown and covered with wrinkles, looked very wise, very ugly, and very kind. His voice was grave and his eyes were merry so that, until you got to now him really well, it was hard to know when he was joking and when he was serious. His name was Doctor Cornelius.”
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C.S. Lewis
“For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.”
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C.S. Lewis
“I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
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C.S. Lewis
“But as long as you know you're nobody special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears.”
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C.S. Lewis
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!') In heavens name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you're making.”
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C.S. Lewis
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, "Yes. But I bet no dog would ever confess it to the other dogs.”
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C.S. Lewis