Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.
And the seriousness with which the other party takes my words always raises the doubt whether I have taken them seriously enough myself.
Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.
If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
I'm afraid it's not much use to you, Mr. Rumblebuffin.' Not at all. Not at all.' said the giant politely. 'Never met a nicer hankerchee.
If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a wandering to find home, why should we not look forward to the arrival?
The difference [God's] timelessness makes is that this now (which slips away from you even as you say the word now) is for Him infinite.
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.'
The world is so much larger than I thought. I thought we went along paths--but it seems there are no paths. The going itself is the path.
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.
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.
Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.
If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality.
Holiness is irresistible. If even 10% of the world's population had it the whole world would be converted and happy before the year's end.
I never see why we should do anything unless it is either a duty or a pleasure! Life's short enough without filling up hours unnecessarily
Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name.
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.
They say, 'The coward dies many times'; so does the beloved. Didn't the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined?
Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.
Perfect goodness can never debate about the end to be attained, and perfect wisdom cannot debate about the means most suited to achieve it.
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.
No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
If devils exist, their first aim is to give you an anesthetic -- to put you off your guard. Only if that fails, do you become aware of them.
For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.
Yes, I know,' interrupted Puddleglum. 'And few return to the sunlit lands. You needn't say it again. You are a chap of one idea, aren't you?
If you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way.
His face had become very red and his mouth and fingers were sticky. He did not look either clever or handsome, whatever the Queen might say.
I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.
The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.
The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.
We are...a Divine work of art, something that God is making...something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character.
I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?
It is because they have no Oyarsa,' said one of the pupils. It is because everyone of them wants to be a little Oyarsa himself,' said Augray.
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.
And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best.
The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must think of God as the whole page on which the line is drawn.
I have seen landscapes . . . which, under a particular light, make me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge.
Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.
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.
Sometimes it is hard not to say, 'God forgive God.' Sometimes it is hard to say so much. But if our faith is true, He didn't. He crucified Him.
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.
I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.
The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive.
Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything.
We have lost the invaluable faculty of being shocked a faculty which has hitherto almost distinguished the Man or Woman from the beast or child.
At least he went on saying this till Aslan had loaded him up with three dwarfs, one dryad, two rabbits, and a hedgehog, that steadied him a bit.
What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?'