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
It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' [everything]. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.
If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary.
When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only person in the world.
If there is equality it is in His love, not in us.
If God 'foresaw' our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose god is outside and above the Time-line... You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He know your tomorrow's actions in just the same way--because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but the moment at which you have done it is already 'NOW' for Him.
The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.
I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else.
Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.
We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Thirst was made for water. Inquiry for truth.
Provocation doesn't make me ill-tempered: it only shows me how ill-tempered I am.