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Badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.

C. S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis
Age: 64 †
Born: 1898
Born: January 1
Died: 1963
Died: January 1
Autobiographer
Broadcaster
Essayist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Literary Scholar
Medievalist
Novelist
Belfast
Ireland
Clive Hamilton
N. W. Clerk
CS Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis
C.S. Lewis
Thing
Original
Way
Catholic
Good
Goodness
Succeed
Parasite
Evil
Badness
Speak
Parasites
Cannot
Spoiled
Even
Originals

More quotes by C. S. Lewis

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Am I to understand,' said Reepicheep to Lucy after a long stare at Eustace, 'That this singularly discourteous person is under your Majesty's protection? Because, if not--
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And in that far distant day when the gods become wholly beautiful, or we at last are shown how beautiful they always were, this will happen more and more. For mortals, as you said, will become more and more jealous. And mother and wife and child and friend will all be in league to keep a soul from being united with the Divine Nature.
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One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.
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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
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The harder you tried not to think, the more you thought.
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When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were.
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Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear
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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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If these holy places, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could we but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm. Hence both the necessity, and the perennial danger, of 'religion.'
C. S. Lewis
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On many questions and specially in view of the marriage bed, the Puritans were the indulgent party, . . . they were much more Chestertonian than their adversaries. The idea that a Puritan was a repressed and repressive person would have astonished Sir Thomas More and Luther about equally.
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You must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can't give.
C. S. Lewis
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If people knew how much ill-feeling unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit.
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You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.
C. S. Lewis
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No good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights.
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The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author's mind.
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Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.
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In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.
C. S. Lewis
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It is better to forget about yourself altogether.
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Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.
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Every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, which will 'turn the necessity to glorious gain.
C. S. Lewis