Writer, poet, scholar, Christian apologist, Oxford professor, and theologian, CS. Lewis continues to be remembered as one of the most quoted and well-known authors of all time.
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
“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.”
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
“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.”
“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
“You can make anything by writing.”
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.”
“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken.’”
“God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”
“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
“I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”
“Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.”
“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.”
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
“Things never happen the same way twice.”
“The great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go God’s love for us does not.”
“I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Click here to download our spring 2023 catalog
