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Who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed?

C. S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis
Age: 64 †
Born: 1898
Born: January 1
Died: 1963
Died: January 1
Autobiographer
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Literary Critic
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Belfast
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Clive Hamilton
N. W. Clerk
CS Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis
C.S. Lewis
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More quotes by C. S. Lewis

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As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may think he does, but when he is brought to the test it proves otherwise... For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms.
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I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.
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That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.
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Have you not seen that in our days Of any whose story, song or art Delights us, our sincerest praise Means, when all's said, 'You break my heart?
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Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still.
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Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality.
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You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.
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Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C. S. Lewis
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Friendship is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.
C. S. Lewis
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Even when I feared and detested Christianity, I was struck by its essential unity, which, in spite of its divisions, it has never lost. I trembled on recognizing the same unmistakable aroma coming from the writings of Dante and Bunyan, Thomas Aquinas and William Law.
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Hatred obscures all distinctions.
C. S. Lewis
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To get even near humility, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert.
C. S. Lewis
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We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, and intellectually. We need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.
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Tea should be taken in solitude.
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The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.
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All schools both here and in America should teach far fewer subjects far better.
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Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I for one must get it out.
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They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you. Since but one voice is heard, it
C. S. Lewis
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If you have a religion it must be cosmic.
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To be in love involves the most irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies, and that possession of the beloved will confer, not merely frequent ecstasies, but settled, fruitful, deep-rooted, lifelong happiness.
C. S. Lewis