C.S. Lewis

Narnia, Christian apologist

Modern influential 66 sayings

Sayings by C.S. Lewis

Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.

Unknown — Often attributed, exact source difficult to pinpoint, but aligns with his themes of suffering and pu…
Humorous Unverifiable

The door of the universe is locked from the inside.

Unknown — Often attributed, exact source difficult to pinpoint, but aligns with his theological views on free …
Humorous Unverifiable

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Unknown — Often attributed, exact source difficult to pinpoint, but aligns with his ethical views.
Humorous Unverifiable

To be a Christian is to be a little Christ.

1952 — Mere Christianity
Humorous Unverifiable

We read to know we're not alone.

Unknown — Often attributed, exact source difficult to pinpoint, but aligns with his love for literature and it…
Humorous Unverifiable

What we call 'nature' is a system of events. But there is another kind of system, a system of events which are not natural, but supernatural.

1947 — Miracles
Humorous Unverifiable

The death of a beloved is an amputation.

1961 — A Grief Observed
Humorous Unverifiable

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.

1952 — Mere Christianity
Humorous Unverifiable

The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint... but in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.

1942 — The Screwtape Letters
Humorous Unverifiable

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

1949 — The Weight of Glory
Humorous Unverifiable

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

1933 — Letter to Arthur Greeves
Humorous Confirmed

The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

1942 — The Screwtape Letters
Humorous Confirmed

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

1940 — From 'The Problem of Pain', discussing atheism
Controversial Unverifiable

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

1970 — From 'God in the Dock', criticizing paternalistic governance
Controversial Unverifiable

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.

1960 — From 'The Four Loves', on friendship
Controversial Unverifiable

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite.

1964 — From 'Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer'
Controversial Unverifiable

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.

1952 — From 'Mere Christianity', critiquing atheism
Controversial Unverifiable

I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason.

1986 — From 'Present Concerns', on political philosophy
Controversial Unverifiable

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'

1945 — From 'The Great Divorce', on free will
Controversial Unverifiable

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

1952 — From 'Mere Christianity'
Controversial Unverifiable