C.S. Lewis

While in university, my sister, as a birthday gift, bought me almost a dozen C.S. Lewis books. I completely ate them up. His insight surfaces again and again in my life in different situations. Here are some of them:

"The point about reading C.S. Lewis is that he makes you sure, whatever you believe, that religion accepted or rejected means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of mind." Harper's

My all-time favourite quote on RELATIONSHIPS:

We know that such things sometimes last- and sometimes don't. And when they do last, this is not because they promised at the outset to do so. When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also--I must put it crudely--good people; controlled, loyal, fairminded, mutually adaptable people.
God In The Dock: "We Have No Right to Happiness"


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.


There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
The Four Loves: "Charity"


The question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. Miracles: "Preface"

If you live for the next world, you get this one in the deal; but if you live only for this world, you lose them both.


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.


The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation. Surprised By Joy


A believed idea feels different from an idea that is not believed.
Screwtape Proposes A Toast: "Is Theology Poetry?"


Whatever else faith may mean I feel quite sure that it does not mean any state of psychological certitude such as might be- I think it sometimes is- manufactured from within by the natural action of a strong will upon an obedient imagination. The faith that moves mountains is a gift from Him who created mountains.
Christian Reflections:"Petitionary Prayer: A problem Without An Answer"


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. Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies. Screwtape Proposes A Toast: "The Weight of Glory"


If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.
God in the Dock: "Man or Rabbit?"