Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ.
— C. S. Lewis
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.
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.
If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.
When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you'd been the only man in the world.
Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us... While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable, we will not surrender it to Him. What, then, can God do in our interests but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness?
Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
