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
One thing that flying in space does for you is it gives you a change in perspective. We all have to live in the same place.
Peggy WhitsonRead
The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
William Butler YeatsRead
Every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home.
BoethiusRead
Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
Walter LippmannRead
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
T. S. EliotRead
Every man alone is sincere._x000D_ At the entrance of a second person,_x000D_ hypocrisy begins._x000D_ We parry and fend the approach_x000D_ of our fellow-man by compliments,_x000D_ by gossip, by amusements, by affairs._x000D_ We cover up our thought from him_x000D_ under a hundred folds.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead