C.S. Lewis ( 10 of 145 )
If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful
If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 It is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when read more
Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 It is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up "our own" when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud, He would hardly have us on such terms.
What can you ever really know of other people's souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul read more
What can you ever really know of other people's souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands
Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as read more
Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as a neurosis. When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to the government, what is to hinder the government from proceeding to 'cure' It? Such 'cure' will , of course, be compulsory; but under the humanitarian theory it will not be called by the shocking name of Persecution. No one will blame us for being Christians, no one will hate us, no one revile us. The new Nero will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor, and though all will be in fact {compulsory}, all will go on within the unemotional therapeutic sphere where words like 'right' and 'wrong' , or 'freedom' and 'slavery' are never heard. And thus when the command is given, every prominent Christian in the land may vanish overnight into Institutions for the Treatment of the Ideologically Unsound, and it will rest with the expert gaolers to when (if ever) they are to emerge. But it will not be persecution. Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident, the intention was purely therapeutic.
If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of read more
If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.
Men say, "How are we to act, what are we to teach our children, now that we are no longer read more
Men say, "How are we to act, what are we to teach our children, now that we are no longer Christians?" You see, gentlemen, how I would answer that question. You are deceived in thinking that the morality of your father was based on Christianity. On the contrary, Christianity presupposed it. That morality stands exactly where it did; its basis has not been withdrawn, for, in a sense, it never had a basis. The ultimate ethical injunctions have always been premises, never conclusions. Kant was perfectly right on that point at least, the imperative is categorical. Unless the ethical is assumed from the outset, no argument will bring you to it.
Feast of the Conversion of Paul If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that read more
Feast of the Conversion of Paul If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of learning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical. You would be surprised if you knew how soon one begins to feel the shortness of the tether: of how many things, even in middle life, we have to say, "No time for that", "Too late now" and "Not for me". But Nature herself forbids you [young people] to share that experience. A more Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God's hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not.
The perfect church service,would be one we were almost unaware of.Our attention would have been on God.
The perfect church service,would be one we were almost unaware of.Our attention would have been on God.
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer read more
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.
