C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewiswas a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He held academic positions at both Oxford University, 1925–54, and Cambridge University, 1954–63. He is best known for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth29 November 1898
CountryIreland
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.
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.
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time.
It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.
With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.
What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.
Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.