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
Materialism is in fact no protection. Those who seek it in that hope (they are not a negligible class) will be disappointed. The thing you fear is impossible. Well and good. Can you therefore cease to fear it? Not here and now. And what then? If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Material wealth does not guarantee safety or happiness, and fearing the unknown is a common human experience.
C. S. Lewis reflects on the futility of seeking materialism as a safeguard against life's uncertainties. He asserts that the pursuit of material things cannot truly protect us and suggests that embracing our fears, rather than dismissing them, may lead to a more profound understanding of our existence and the nature of our fears.
Themes
MaterialismFearDisappointmentExistenceGhosts
In practice
Example use cases
A public speech on the pitfalls of consumerism and the importance of confronting our fears.
More from C. S. Lewis
All quotes →I 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
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
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
Similar quotes
Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
For this remains as I have already pointed out the essential difference between the two religions of decadence : Buddhism promises nothing, but actually fulfils; Christianity promises everything, but fulfils nothing.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.
Patrick HenryRead
All her knowledge is gone now. Everything she ever learned, or heard, or saw. Her particular way of looking at Hamlet or daisies or thinking about love, all her private intricate thoughts, her inconsequential secret musings – they’re gone too. I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns. I’m watching it burn right to the ground.
Jandy NelsonRead
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Bertrand RussellRead
For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.
John LockeRead