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Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers.

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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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
Honest
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Minimum
Temptation
Accepted

More quotes by C. S. Lewis

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The full acting out of the self's surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination
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When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
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The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
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We may note in passing that He (Jesus) was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects - Hatred - Terror - Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild admiration.
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You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.
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The incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry, the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon, are always blowing evil’s whole structure away.
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When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child you don't understand.
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Unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one.
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The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact.
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Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.
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What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.
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The proper good of a creature is to surrender itself to its Creator—to enact intellectually, volitionally, and emotionally, that relationship which is given in the mere fact of its being a creature. When it does so, it is good and happy.
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What we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you...We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly.
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It will not bother me in the hour of death to reflect that I have been had for a sucker by any number of imposters but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need.
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If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all
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God is not merely good, but goodness goodness is not merely divine, but God.
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A thing may be morally neutral and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous.
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His face had become very red and his mouth and fingers were sticky. He did not look either clever or handsome, whatever the Queen might say.
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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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Last year, when he had been staying with the Pevensies, he had managed to hear them all talking of Narnia and he loved teasing them about it. He thought of course that they were making it all up and as he was far too stupid to make anything up himself, he did not approve of that.
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