Quote

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.

C. S. Lewis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Lives
Ideal
Individual
Ideals
Means
Goodness
Seems
Species
Care
Mere
Mean
Progress
Contemptible
Long
Humanity
Longevity
Men
Happiness
Increasing

More quotes by C. S. Lewis

Image
Some have paid me an undeserved compliment by supposing that my Letters were the ripe fruit of many years' study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how temptation works.
C. S. Lewis
Image
There is someone that I love even though I don't approve of what he does. There is someone I accept though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me. There is someone I forgive though he hurts the people I love the most. That person is......me.
C. S. Lewis
Image
I mean, the more a man was in the Devil's power, the less he would be aware of it, on the principle that a man is still fairly sober as long as he knows he's drunk.
C. S. Lewis
Image
We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the rising generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of parents to children than by those of children to parents.
C. S. Lewis
Image
To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves... The modern world in comparison, ignores it.
C. S. Lewis
Image
From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the centre is opened to it.
C. S. Lewis
Image
Safe?” said Mr. Beaver “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.
C. S. Lewis
Image
The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.
C. S. Lewis
Image
I gave up Christianity at about 14. Came back to it when getting on for 30. Not an emotional conversion almost purely philosophical. I didn't want to. I'm not in the least a religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master but since the facts seemed to be just the opposite, I had to give in.
C. S. Lewis
Image
It is very true. But even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did.
C. S. Lewis
Image
Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it.
C. S. Lewis
Image
The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike...Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish.
C. S. Lewis
Image
Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder as great a wonder (pace the novelists) as first love, or even greater.
C. S. Lewis
Image
In the science, Evolution is a theory about changes in the myth it is a fact about improvements.
C. S. Lewis
Image
'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.
C. S. Lewis
Image
We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.
C. S. Lewis
Image
Isn't it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That's how we get things done.
C. S. Lewis
Image
Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.
C. S. Lewis
Image
It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.
C. S. Lewis
Image
I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.
C. S. Lewis