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Bad art is never really enjoyed in the same sense in which good art is enjoyed. It is only liked: it never startles, prostrates, and takes captive.

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
Liked
Takes
Sense
Art
Really
Startles
Good
Captive
Never
Captives
Enjoyed

More quotes by C. S. Lewis

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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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Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others.
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To love is to be vulnerable.
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Of course language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience.
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My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
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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.
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I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
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Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one.
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It is only when you are asked to believe in Reason coming from non-reason that you must cry Halt. Human minds. They do not come from nowhere.
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We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.
C. S. Lewis
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Please,' she said, 'You're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd rather be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.
C. S. Lewis
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To make Christianity a private affair while banishing all privacy is to relegate it to the rainbow's end or the Greek Calends.
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Is any pleasure on Earth as great as a circle of Christian friends?
C. S. Lewis
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Pain is G-d's megaphone to wake up the world.
C. S. Lewis
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The only way to drive out bad culture is to create good culture. We need to recognize that artistic talent is a gift from the Lord - and that developing those talents is the only way to create good culture.
C. S. Lewis
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Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.
C. S. Lewis
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Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.
C. S. Lewis
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When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.
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The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.
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A great deal of what is being published by writers in the religious tradition is a scandal and is actually turning people away from the church. The liberal writers who are continually accommodating and whittling down the truth of the Gospel are responsible.
C. S. Lewis