C. S. Lewis

Theology offers you a working arrangement, which leaves the scientist free to continue his experiments and the Christian to continue his prayers.

All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning...Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true.

Non-Christians seem to think that the Incarnation implies some particular merit or excellence in humanity. But of course it implies just the reverse: a particular demerit and depravity. No creature that deserved Redemption would need to be redeemed. They that are whole need not the physician. Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; to make them worth it.

Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality.

The Intelligentsia (scientists apart) are losing all touch with, and all influence over, nearly the whole human race. Our most esteemed poets and critics are read by our most esteemed critics and poets (who don't usually like them much) and nobody else takes any notice. An increasing number of highly literate people simply ignore what the 'Highbrows' are doing. It says nothing to them. The Highbrows in return ignore and insult them.

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.

Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.

Friendship is...the sort of love one can imagine between angels.

For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.

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.

A blessed spirit is a mould ever more and more patient of the bright metal poured into it, a body ever more completely uncovered to the meridian blaze of the spiritual sun.

For in self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm not only of all creation but of all being.

In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are.

Hatred obscures all distinctions.

You must not do, you must not even try to do, the will of the Father unless you are prepared to 'know of the doctrine'.

Only He who really lived a human life (and I presume that only one did) can fully taste the horror of death.

Every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us.

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

The moment good taste knows itself, some of its goodness is lost.

The difference [God's] timelessness makes is that this now (which slips away from you even as you say the word now) is for Him infinite.

Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author's control.