A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
C. S. LewisRead
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Prayer is a personal act that transforms the one who prays, rather than affecting God directly.
In this quote, C. S. Lewis expresses the intrinsic nature of prayer as an expression of human need and vulnerability. Rather than portraying prayer as a means to influence the divine, he emphasizes that it serves to deepen and change the individual who engages in it, highlighting the transformative power of surrender and reflection in the act of praying.
Themes
PrayerTransformationHumilityFaithHelplessness
In practice
Example use cases
In a church service where the theme is reliance on faith during tough times.
More from C. S. Lewis
All quotes βI enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it was condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it.
C. S. LewisRead
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
C. S. LewisRead
Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
C. S. LewisRead
The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred
C. S. LewisRead
The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you ever heard it? Can you remember?
C. S. LewisRead
Similar quotes
For what concerns diversity of rites in the sacred liturgy, the Apostolic See has always made its position clear: not only it does not condemn diversity, but it eagerly and willingly grants to each nation the right to keep and preserve the legitimate customs and traditions of its forbears.
Pope Leo XiiiRead
The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside.
Stephen KingRead
It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
...human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their ignorance of the misuse.
Robert WrightRead
If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it... then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.
AristotleRead