C.S. Lewis is one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the 20th century, and his writings have been an inspiration to millions. Born in 1898 and educated at Oxford University, Lewis was a prolific writer who published many books on Christian spirituality. He lived in England for most of his life. Still, He spent considerable time teaching in Cambridge and Oxford–two other great English universities–and served as a visiting professor at various American universities.
In addition to his academic work, Lewis’s best-known literary works are The Chronicles of Narnia series; Out of the Silent Planet; The Screwtape Letters; Mere Christianity; The Great Divorce; Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche); The Four Loves.
These 165 quotes by C.S. Lewis are a great way to find that inspiration you need
“Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.” ― C. S. Lewis
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” ― C. S. Lewis
“It is not your business to succeed, but to do right; when you have done so, the rest lies with God.” ― C. S. Lewis
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We are what we believe we are.” ― C. S. Lewis
“No good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We’re not doubting that God will do the best for us; we’re wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you do, and you will presently come to love him.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” ― C. S. Lewis
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.” ― C. S. Lewis
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different…” ― C. S. Lewis
“Joy is the serious business of Heaven.” ― C. S. Lewis
“How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We are mirrors whose brightness is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” ― C. S. Lewis
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” ― C. S. Lewis
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” ― C. S. Lewis
“If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.” ― C. S. Lewis
“You may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God.” ― C. S. Lewis
“There is no uncreated being except God. God has no opposite.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Forgiveness does not mean excusing.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Forgiveness does not mean excusing” ― C. S. Lewis
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” ― C. S. Lewis
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” ― C. S. Lewis
“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” ― C. S. Lewis
“With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.” ― C. S. Lewis
“A pleasure is not full grown until it is remembered.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Reality is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.” ― C. S. Lewis
“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We do not want merely to see beauty . . . We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” ― C. S. Lewis
“I sometimes wonder if all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.” ― C. S. Lewis
“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.” ― C. S. Lewis
“It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ― C. S. Lewis
“To walk out of His will is to walk into nowhere.” ― C. S. Lewis
“sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth.”― C. S. Lewis
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.”
“God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.”― C. S. Lewis
“All get what they want; they do not always like it.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.” ― C. S. Lewis
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ― C. S. Lewis
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also harder to bear.” ― C. S. Lewis
“One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness.” – C. S. Lewis
“All get what they want; they do not always like it.” – C. S. Lewis
“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C. S. Lewis
“The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” – C. S. Lewis
“Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael.” – C. S. Lewis
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” – C. S. Lewis
“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.” – C. S. Lewis
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” – C. S. Lewis
“Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.” – C. S. Lewis
“Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.”
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”
“The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.”
“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”
“Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones.” – C. S. Lewis
“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.” – C. S. Lewis
“It cost God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost him crucifixion.” – C. S. Lewis
“Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony.” – C. S. Lewis
“‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.” – C. S. Lewis
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” – C. S. Lewis
“If you’re thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you’re embarking on something, which will take the whole of you.” – C. S. Lewis
“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” – C. S. Lewis
“The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.” – C. S. Lewis
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.” – C. S. Lewis
“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.” – C. S. Lewis
“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.” – C. S. Lewis
“Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.” – C. S. Lewis
“Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.” – C. S. Lewis
“A pleasure is not full grown until it is remembered.” – C. S. Lewis
“In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s, we do not accept them easily enough.” – C. S. Lewis
“There are only 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.” – C. S. Lewis
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.” – C. S. Lewis
“Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.” – C. S. Lewis
“I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.” – C. S. Lewis
“One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness.” – C. S. Lewis
“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.” – C. S. Lewis
“We are mirrors whose brightness is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.”
“I gave in, and admitted that God was God.” – C. S. Lewis
“Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.” – C. S. Lewis
“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.” – C. S. Lewis
“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” – C. S. Lewis
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” – C. S. Lewis
“To love at all is to be vulnerable” – C. S. Lewis
“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes and precautions – to Christ.” – C. S. Lewis
“The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one’s life.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” – C. S. Lewis
“To walk out of his will is to walk into nowhere.” ― C. S. Lewis
“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” ― C. S. Lewis
“All these toys were never intended to possess my heart. My true good is in another world, and my only real treasure is Christ.” ― C. S. Lewis
“I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.”
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” ― C. S. Lewis
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” ― C. S. Lewis
“There would be no sense in saying you trusted Jesus if you would not take his advice.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We must show our Christian colors if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.” ― C. S. Lewis
“This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.” ― C. S. Lewis
“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair.” ― C. S. Lewis
“It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate.” ― C. S. Lewis
“We do not want merely to see beauty… We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.” ― C. S. Lewis
“If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” ― C. S. Lewis
“In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s, we do not accept them easily enough.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” ― C. S. Lewis
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” – C. S. Lewis
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” – C. S. Lewis
“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” ― C. S. Lewis
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” ― C. S. Lewis
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen – not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Though our feelings come and go, his love for us does not.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career.” ― C. S. Lewis
“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.” ― C. S. Lewis
“God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. You are as much alone with him as if you were the only being he had ever created.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.”― C. S. Lewis
“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you do, and you will presently come to love him.” ― C. S. Lewis
“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.” ― C. S. Lewis
“You must ask for God’s help. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Good English’ is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another.” ― C. S. Lewis
“When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you’d been the only man in the world.” ― C. S. Lewis
“To love at all is to be vulnerable.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.” ― C. S. Lewis
“The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred.” ― C. S. Lewis
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” ― C. S. Lewis
“History isn’t just the story of bad people doing bad things. It’s quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong.” ― C. S. Lewis
“Jesus Christ did not say, “Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.” ― C. S. Lewis
“It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.” ― C. S. Lewis
