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But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or anything — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.

C. S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis
Age: 64 †
Born: 1898
Born: January 1
Died: 1963
Died: January 1
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Clive Hamilton
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We do not see into men’s hearts. We cannot judge, and are indeed forbidden to judge.
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Humans are very seldom either totally sincere or totally hypocritical. Their moods change, their motives are mixed, and they are often quite mistaken as to what their motives are.
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But do you really mean, Sir, said Peter, that there could be other worlds-all over the place, just round the corner-like that? Nothing is more probable, said the Profesor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.
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Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
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You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.
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We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.
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If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.
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First be sure that you know exactly what you want to say. Then be sure you have said exactly that.
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It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.
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I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms, said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
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What can be better than to get out a book on Saturday afternoon and thrust all mundane considerations away till next week.
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If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
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You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you, said the Lion.
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Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.
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You ask ‘for what’ God wants you. Isn’t the primary answer that He wants you. We’re not told that the lost sheep was sought out for anything except itself [Matthew 18:12-14 Luke 15:3-7]. Of course, He may have a special job for you: and the certain job is that of becoming more and more His.
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Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him.
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If tribulation is a necessary element in redemption, we must anticipate that it will never cease till God sees the world to be either redeemed or no further redeemable.
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Only real risk passes the reality of faith.
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We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.
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Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others.
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