“No sooner do we believe that God loves us than there is an impulse to believe that He does so, not because He is Love, but because we are intrinsically lovable. The Pagans obeyed this impulse unabashed; a good man was "dear to the gods" because he was good. We, being better taught, resort to subterfuge. Far be it from us to think that we have virtues for which God could love us. But then, how magnificently we have repented! As Bunyan says, describing his first and illusory conversion, "I thought there was no man in England that pleased God better than I." Beaten out of this, we next offer our own humility to God's admiration. Surely He'll like that? Or if not that, our clear-sighted and humble recognition that we still lack humility. Thus, depth beneath depth and subtlety within subtelty, there remains some lingering idea of our own, our very own attractiveness. It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little--however little--native luminosity? Surely we can't be quite creatures?
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C.S. Lewis
“Knock and it shall be opened.' But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?”
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C.S. Lewis
“A woman's heart should be so close to God that a man should have to chase Him to find her.”
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C.S. Lewis
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
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C.S. Lewis
“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex is very often a substitute for Joy. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy.”
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C.S. Lewis
“The harder you tried not to think, the more you thought.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Virtue - even attempted virtue - brings light; indulgence brings fog.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
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C.S. Lewis
“The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
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C.S. Lewis
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career. ”
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C.S. Lewis
A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not at all afraid of fire."
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C.S. Lewis
“Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad.”
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C.S. Lewis
“Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.”
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C.S. Lewis
“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story.”
―
C.S. Lewis
