C.S. Lewis 1898-1963

Some Words of the Most Reluctant Convert, C.S. Lewis

Monday, July 18th, 2022

A CROOKED PATH

“On the back of Satan’s neck is a nail scarred footprint.” 

“Jesus produced mainly three effects: hatred, terror, adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.” 

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” 

“You must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best” 

“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.” 

“Forgiveness does not mean excusing.” 

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” 

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.” 

“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.” 

“God wants a child’s heart and a grownup’s head.” 

“Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good – above all, that we are better than someone else – I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.” 

“In such a fearful world, we need a fearless church” 

“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.” 

“A sign of a culture that has lost its faith – Moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse.” 

“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?” 

“We all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it.” 

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” 

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” 

“Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties.” 

“The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks” 

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” 

“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.” 

“One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.” 

“We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life.” 

“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world” 

“I’m not sure God wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to love, and be loved. But we are like children, thinking our toys will make us happy and the whole world is our nursery. Something must drive us out of that nursery and into the lives of others, and that something is suffering.” 

“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.” 

“The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can’t supply is proof that Heaven must be our home.” 

“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.” 

“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.'” 

“Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” 

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” 

“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” 

“Evil comes from the ABUSE of free will” 

“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” 

“The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.” 

“Where men are forbidden to honour a king, they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.” 

“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.” 

“Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist.” 

“God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.” 

“After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us toward is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.” 

“I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.” 

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” 

“No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that ‘In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth’.” 

“God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.” 

“He (the devil) always sends errors into the world in pairs–pairs of opposites…He relies on your extra dislike of one to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.” 

“Our Heavenly Father has provided many delightful inns for us along our journey, but he takes great care to see that we do not mistake any of them for home.” 

“When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only person in the world.” 

“The holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.” 

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” 

“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord.’ It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”