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Ideally, we should like to define a good book as one which 'permits, invites, or compels' good reading

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
Invites
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Permits

More quotes by C. S. Lewis

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Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality.
C. S. Lewis
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Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved.
C. S. Lewis
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Life is too deep for words, so don't try to describe it, just live it.
C. S. Lewis
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Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.
C. S. Lewis
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The descent to hell is easy and those who begin by worshipping power, soon worship evil.
C. S. Lewis
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Afflictions are... if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ
C. S. Lewis
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We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sat silent and sucked his pipe All the evening, from his empty mug With gleaming eye glanced towards us: I seen 'em myself! he said fiercely.
C. S. Lewis
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The promise, made when I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love.
C. S. Lewis
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We all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it.
C. S. Lewis
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When you argue against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.
C. S. Lewis
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I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
C. S. Lewis
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The road to the promised land runs past Sinai.
C. S. Lewis
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You cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis
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Devils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because anyone holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats.
C. S. Lewis
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A man whose life has been transformed by Christ cannot help but have his worldview show through.
C. S. Lewis
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For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.
C. S. Lewis
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Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.
C. S. Lewis
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It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses. To remember that the dullest, and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.
C. S. Lewis
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Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed to produce it in public is like getting your household furniture out for a move. It did very well in its place, but it looks shabby or tawdry or grotesque in the sunshine.
C. S. Lewis
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No thanks, said Digory, I don't know that I care much about living on and on after everyone I know is dead. I'd rather live an ordinary time and die and go to Heaven.
C. S. Lewis