C.S. Lewis ( 10 of 145 )
We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will read more
We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to read more
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
One mustn't make the Christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the Jewish, for two reasons. (1) It read more
One mustn't make the Christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the Jewish, for two reasons. (1) It raises scruples when we don't keep the routine. (2) It raises presumption when we do. Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and read more
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 A man's physical hunger does not read more
Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 A man's physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called `falling in love" occurred in a sexless world.
Ascension If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning read more
Ascension If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning -- just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know that it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
We read to know we are not alone.
We read to know we are not alone.
Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The very strength and facility of the pessimists' read more
Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The very strength and facility of the pessimists' case at once poses us a problem. If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must have always been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held.
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, read more
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
