Quotes by C. S. Lewis

"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."

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The lover sees to a certain degree like God, whose love and knowledge are intertwined in his person. You can say, he sees us because he loves, and he loves even though he sees us.

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The engine of marriage is driven by love: love was the explosion that started it.

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The Christian understanding of marriage is based on the words of Christ that man and woman should be considered as one organism, one body. (...) According to the faith of Christians, when Jesus said this, he was not voicing his sentimentality, but stating a fact, just as someone who says that a lock and a key are the same structure states a fact, or that both the violin and the string are an instrument.

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What people see as mere interludes are precisely those that give one's life.

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One day you will be old enough to read stories again.

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Everything that is earthly passes away. And what is not permanent loses its importance forever.

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In my private life, I'm just a literary critic and historian, because that's my profession... Based on this, I'm ready to say that if anyone thinks that the Gospels are legends or fictional novels, then this only shows how much they don't understand literary criticism. I have already read a lot of novels, and I know quite a lot about the legends that arose at the dawn of humanity, and I firmly believe that the Gospels are not stories like these.

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If the solar system was created by an accidental collision, then the appearance of life on this planet was also accidental, and the entire evolution of man was also accidental. If this is so, then all our current thoughts are also random - an accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this applies to the thoughts of materialists and astronomers as well as to anyone else's. But if their thoughts are merely the byproducts of chance, why should we believe that they are right? I see no reason to believe that one coincidence can account for all other coincidences.

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Aim for the sky and you'll get the earth as a bonus. Aim for the ground and none will be yours.

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We must preserve the true homesickness for our true country, so that nothing and no one can extinguish or corrupt it in us.

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We first feel how strong the power of evil is in us when we want to get rid of it.

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Reality: the destroyer of our ideas.

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The fact that I often put others in a box myself is because it is obvious to me when they do it to me. We all compete in each other's eyes.

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Grief is like a long, winding valley where every turn can reveal a brand new landscape. But not necessarily. Sometimes the essence of the surprise lies precisely in the fact that we are walking in the same countryside that we thought we had already left miles behind us. In this case, one looks around in a dream to see if the valley is not a ditch leading in a circle. But it's not! There are recurring details, but the sequence is not repetitive.

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When we are aware that we are dreaming, we no longer sleep so deeply.

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It is said that an unhappy person longs for something to do to distract himself. Why, just as a dead-tired man would rather wander about on a winter's night than get up and find a blanket for himself.

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When a man is happy, he is so happy that he does not feel the need of God; indeed, as if God were directly disrupting this happiness with his requests. But if a person comes to his senses and turns to him with gratitude and praise, then God - it seems - welcomes him with open arms. But what does one find in the hour of despair, in the hour of need, when all other help is in vain? A door slammed in his face and the click of the heavy lock, once, twice as it closes.

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Suppose someone is banned from eating salt. You won't find one food more unsalted than another; eating itself becomes a different experience for him every day, at every stage of the day. It's the same with grief. Being itself changes, after all. His absence, like the blue sky, covers everything.

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Fate - let's call it whatever it is - seems to take pleasure in creating greatness and deciding on ruin. Beethoven became deaf. By our standards, this is an evil joke, a malicious stunt production.

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No one can know how strongly they believe in something until it has real stakes. It is easy to nod your head as if this rope would surely hold it, while the rope is only used for packaging. Suppose, however, that he were to hang over a precipice by this rope: would it not at once reveal how much he really trusts in the strength of the rope? We are the same with our neighbors. (...) Only the feeling of a real danger can test the strength of faith.

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Grief over a death is like a bomber: it drops a shell every time it repeatedly overshoots the target. Physical pain, on the other hand, is like the constant barrage over the trenches of the First World War: the air glows for hours without a break, without a single moment of relief. Thought, unlike pain, is never continuous.

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One cannot see clearly until tears are welling up in one's eyes.

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In most situations, a person will not succeed in fulfilling their heart's desire if they want it too desperately - or if they do, they could have succeeded better with some moderation.

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Those who ask - at least those who demand too violently - will not be given. Maybe because he can't take it in.

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When there is nothing in the world in our hearts, only a cry for help, maybe God can't help just then. Just as a drowning person cannot be helped as long as he is thrashing about. You may not be able to hear the rescuer's voice because of your own echoing calls for help.

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What is not eternal is forever obsolete.

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The reality is different and the shadow is different, the waking life is different and the dream is different.

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The present is the point where time meets eternity.

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You are a descendant of Adam and Eve. And this is so much honor that even the poorest beggar can walk with his head held high, and so much shame that even the greatest emperor can bend his back. So be satisfied.

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I know much about what is, but very little about what will be.

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Attachment (...) is the humblest form of love. He never poses. People are proud of love or a friendship. But affectionate love is modest, even shy.

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Appreciative love only watches, listens with bated breath, and rejoices that such a miracle exists, even if it is not for him; he doesn't break down when he loses her and is happy to have met her at all.

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He who waits long alone lives every hour as a millennium.

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When you're afraid, it's best to look in the direction of danger, but lean against something safe and warm.

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Walking and talking are both great pleasures, but it is a mistake to connect the two together. Our own noise drowns out the sounds and silence of the outside world... You should only go for a walk with a friend (...) who shares with you exactly all the atmosphere of the landscape, so much so that a single look, a stop, or at most a silent touch is enough to to let each other know: we enjoy the same thing.

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If you acknowledge that you are not the wonder of the world, everyone will respect you.

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To love is to become vulnerable. Whoever you love, your heart is sure to be crushed and possibly broken. If you want to be sure to keep it intact, you should not give it to anyone. Wrap it carefully in hobbies and small pleasures; avoid all complications, lock it safely in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. And in that chest your heart begins to change. It will be hard, unbreakable and irreducible.

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Friendship is actually unnecessary, just like philosophy or art... It is not necessary for survival, but rather it gives meaning to survival.

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A person is not afraid of a writhing earthworm if he has already dealt with a rattlesnake, he is not afraid of a cow if he has already met a maddened bull.

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When you start hoping for something you want so much, you almost fight against the hope because it's too good to be true; and you've been disappointed in him so many times.

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Making common plans always brings people closer together than chatting.

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Just like childish stupidity, adult stupidity also has its own characteristics.

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The greatest cowardice of mediocre people is that they refuse to acknowledge the facts.

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Friendship is born when someone says, "Really? You too? I thought I was the only one."

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There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God will say in the end, "Thy will be done."

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Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. God, you're learning.

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It's interesting, the more tired you are, the harder it is to get into bed, especially if you have a fireplace in your bedroom and the fire is crackling in the fireplace.

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Friendship is something that has almost risen above humanity. This love is free from instincts and obligations, yet freely undertaken, almost entirely free from jealousy, and not subordinated to the need to be needed, it is a most spiritual thing. This is the kind of love one imagines among angels.

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If you are learning to ride, there is no better teacher than a horse.

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Remember, every world is coming to an end, and a noble death is a treasure that no one is too poor to buy.

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The living can still trust in luck, but the dead will just stay dead.

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Joy makes life worth living.

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We can ignore it, but we can never avoid God's presence, as it fills the world to overflowing. He is everywhere - incognito.

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Divine goodness is different from ours, but not fundamentally different: it is not as different from it as white is from black, but as the perfect circle is from a child's first attempt to draw a circle.

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The gods always surprise me with some dazzling joy when they have a new bitter in store for us. We are bubbles for them and they enjoy blowing them up before bursting.

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Getting over a painful experience is like pulling yourself up a climbing frame. At a certain point, you have to let go of the grid in order to continue.

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These are the most precious hours - when four or five of us gather in our favorite inn after a tiring day; we put on slippers, stretch our legs towards the bright sun, drink at elbow distance; we talk, and the whole world, and what lies beyond it, opens up before us; we are not responsible for anyone, we are all free and equal, as if we had met only an hour ago, but meanwhile we are surrounded by an affection that has matured over the years. We cannot receive a more beautiful gift from life - from earthly life.

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You vote for today's fashionable view, but how long do you think it will last?... And as for my taste, of course it's old-fashioned. Yours will soon be too.

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In the deepest solitude, a straight path leads out of me, and I encounter something that is not a sensual stimulus, not a biological or social need, not an idea, not a state of mind, but objectivity itself.

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There is something in each of my friends that only a third friend can bring out perfectly. I don't have enough power in myself to set the whole person in motion, others shed light on it from a different angle.

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We were not created as brains or instincts, but as human beings.

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The thirst for knowledge is a kind of madness.

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Christian and pagan cultures had more values ​​in common than either of them in the post-Christian era. Those who worship other gods are not separated by as great a gulf as any of them are from those who worship nothing.

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The post-Christian man is not a pagan; with that much power, we could even believe that a married woman will regain her virginity if she divorces. The post-Christian is cut off from the Christian past, and therefore even more from the pagan past.

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All evil turns to good when Aslan returns, Paying evil for many, many sorrows. If you clap your paws, winter will flee, If you shake your mane, spring will return.

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To be king is to be first in the fiercest battles and last in every desperate retreat. If famine strikes the country, you will have the most meager food and the most misery.

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In a certain respect, the most obvious and primary fact, which is the key to all other facts, is often the easiest to forget - not because it is too distant or obscure, but because it is very close and obvious.

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A child always pays attention to the details in a story that adults consider unimportant. If we first tell the story that the main character was warned by three people who appeared on the left side of the road, but next time only one person comes, also on the right side of the road, then the child will surely protest - and he is right. We think it doesn't matter because we don't experience the story in the least.

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Whoever creates a masterpiece does not violate the living, inner law of his work with a single note, a single syllable, a single brush stroke. But he unabashedly flouts any surface regularities and regulations that petty, down-to-earth critics see as law.

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When we come to know God, the initiative is on his side. If it does not show itself, nothing enables us to find it. And indeed, he shows much more of himself to some than to others - not because he has favorites, but because he cannot show himself to a person whose whole soul and character are not in the right state. Just as the sun's rays are not reflected, even though they have no favorites, in a dusty mirror as brilliantly as in a clear one.

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We mock honor and decency, then we are shocked to see that there are traitors among us.

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Everyone says that forgiveness is a beautiful thought; as long as you don't have to forgive something.

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A wise man, the more fiercely he is hindered, the more boldly he expresses his opinion.

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The law is stronger than the king. The law makes the king a ruler. You have no right to escape from the crown, just as the sentinel cannot leave his place.

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Remember, the gem retains its value even when hidden in the trash heap.

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Diligence increases possessions. But those who scrutinize things beyond their control, they act in vain, and their punishment will be poverty and misery.

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I know a lot about what is, but very little about what will be (...). I cannot tell who will perish and who will live. Who will fail today, in the setting sun.

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If people don't believe in marriage until death, maybe it's better if they don't get married at all than to swear something they don't mean.

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Life is just an electrochemical reaction. (...) The universe is just matter. Matter is just energy. I forgot what I said about energy being just what it is.

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For me, the moment of prayer means, or rather, it is a prerequisite, that I am aware - I realize again - that the so-called "real world" and "my real self" are very far from the whole reality. While I am in this body, I cannot leave the stage, nor go backstage, nor sit in the orchestra pit; but I can remember that under the stage makeup of my obvious self - this clown or this hero - hides my real person, who has a life outside the stage as well.

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When we accuse someone of behaving "like an animal", we do not mean that they have animal characteristics (because we all have them), but that they show their animal characteristics when humanity is specifically needed.

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Attachment would no longer be attachment if we expressed it loudly and often - it would be like moving our furniture around: in place they are beautifully painted, but in the sunlight they look shabby, tasteless or grotesque.

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The special beauty of attachment is that it unites people who are visibly, sometimes amazingly, incompatible; people who - if fate had not thrown them into the same house or community - would have nothing to do with each other.

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A truly diverse literary taste is when you can find something suitable for the train journey among the penny used books. And the truly varied tastes in people mean that we always find someone to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity assigned for that day.

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Of all the varieties of love, only through friendship have we become like gods or angels.

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Friendship is only born when two similar people find each other, when - at the cost of enormous difficulties, groping, with half-words, or with amazing speed - they sense each other's thoughts.

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When two people of different genders realize that they are on the same secret path, the friendship that develops between them - often in the first half hour - easily turns into love. Moreover, unless they physically repel each other or are engaged elsewhere, sooner or later this will most certainly happen. The reverse is also true, love can sometimes turn into friendship. This fact would not only erase the difference between the two types of love, but also illuminate it even more. If someone with whom you had a deep and close friendship before gradually or suddenly becomes your crush, you don't even think of sharing them with a third party. However, you share friendship with others without jealousy.

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Nothing enriches love like when our loved one makes deep, sincere and spontaneous friendships with our friends, and thus love unites not only the two of us, but three, four, five of us walking the same path, thinking alike.

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Friendship is perfectly free from what attachment is not: the need to be needed. We're almost sorry that loan, gift or childcare took place - so, for God's sake, let's forget about it and get back to what's really important between us! Even gratitude does not strengthen friendship. The clichéd "does nothing" expresses our true feelings here. It's not the perfect friend who helps when absolutely necessary (because that's natural), but the one who returns to the usual routine after helping.

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We all look squeamish when we show interest in something we don't really care about at all.

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Anyone who doesn't sometimes enjoy the opposite sex - such as children or animals - cannot really appreciate them. After all, both sexes are so funny! Humanity is tragicomic, but the division into genders helps us to see the absurdity - and the pitifulness - of the other.

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Once I tried to argue with an old priest: "Well, sir, all nations think that they have the bravest men and the most beautiful women in the world." To which he retorted with dignity (...): "Yes, but that's true for England too." This conviction made my friend (...) of course not yet a villain, just an extremely lovable old man. But many are turned into kicking and biting donkeys by the same conviction, which in its most extreme version leads to race hatred condemned by both Christianity and science.

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Patriotism is not a feeling, but a belief: a solid, almost prosaic belief in the past and present superiority of our own nation.

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Of all the varieties of love, friendship is the only one that elevates you to the world of gods or angels.

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We become one with each other like raindrops on a window.

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Was this world so good to you that you don't mind leaving it here? What awaits us beyond is more beautiful than anything we leave behind.

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Friendship is not a necessity, just as philosophy and art are not. It is worthless in terms of sustenance, but at the same time it is one of the things that gives meaning to sustenance.

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Grief (...) cannot be buried. He hits his head again and again, everything repeats itself all the time.

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What a pathetic cliché that "in my memories lives forever". Is he alive? That's exactly what he doesn't do! It's like thinking like the ancient Egyptians, who hoped to preserve their dead by embalming. Well, nothing convinces us that they are no more! What is left of them? A corpse, a memory, (some say) their ghost. Come on, stupidity! All three are synonymous with death.

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Reality never repeats itself. We never regain the same thing that we once lost.

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If an invisible cat were sitting on the chair, the chair would appear empty; the chair appears to be empty, so an invisible cat is sitting on it.

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We have no reason to label as hypocritical the pleading religiosity of people whose religiosity passes away as soon as danger, hardship, or spiritual troubles are over. Why wouldn't they have been honest? They were desperate, so they screamed for help. Who wouldn't?

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If you accept nature as your teacher, it will teach you what you want to hear from its words.

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He who does not love his fellow citizens, whom he sees every day, will love even less the "humanity" whom he has never seen.

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If we give up our ultimate demands for freedom, power, and wealth, we gain true freedom, power, and wealth, which are truly ours because we received them from God, and therefore know how much they are not really "ours." ".