35 Quotes by C.S. Lewis that are thought-provoking

Today I thought it might be interesting to explore some quotes by C.S. Lewis.

Clive Staples Lewis was a British writer and lay theologian. At various times he held academic positions in English literature at both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England.

C.S. Lewis is probably best known for his works of fiction, especially The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy, as well as for his non-fiction work.

Lewis wrote more than 30 books which have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies.

He was a successful man, and, as I always say, it’s a good idea to listen to successful people.

So here are 35 quotes by C.S. Lewis. I hope you find them both interesting and thought-provoking.

Enjoy them all, and please feel free to pass them on to your friends.

Quotes by C.S. Lewis (1-15):

We are what we believe we are.
Joy is the serious business of Heaven.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.
With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.
Reason is the natural order of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.
How incessant and great are the ills with which prolonged old age is replete?
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.
I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.
Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.
This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
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.
A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience that is not slavery.
If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
History isn’t just the story of bad people doing bad things. It’s quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong.

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise, you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
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.
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.
‘The Lion’ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‘Let’s try to make a story about it.’
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.

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