C. S. Lewis Quotes

My native land is a slave of heathenism, men's god is their belly, and they live only for the present. The richer a man, the holier.

We've digressed from the true meaning of life. We have replaced the Creator with money and claim Him in the name of war. We have dishonored our children.

Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable.

We are all ignorant, just about different things.

My relationship with science is as someone who's curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together.

... to adapt one's outlook to another person's salvation is the surest and quickest way of losing him.

I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library-everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.

The things best to know are first principles and causes, but these things are perhaps the most difficult for men to grasp, for they are farthest removed from the senses.

Wealth is the smallest thing on earth, the least gift that God has bestowed on mankind.

Just because you know doesn't mean they know.

Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo. "Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context.

No one understands eternity. One simply recognizes its existence.

Of course, any simplification runs the risk of mutilating reality; but it helps us establish perspectives.

Capable people do not understand incapacity; clever people do not understand stupidity.

He who look at a woman who is not his wife as a mother; wealth that is not his as dust and all the men as himself... is a happy man. He, who sees all these things under a different light, is a blind.

It's easy to misjudge others. The one thing I try to do with everything I write is open people's eyes to those they normally ignore or dismiss. To make people aware of the "other" side of things.

Historically, the East was more concerned with understanding the mind and the West was more involved in understanding matter.

A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.

The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.

Witchcraft to the ignorant, .... Simple science to the learned.

If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know, and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge.

And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why-- which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.

The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.

The endless cycle of idea and action, Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

What am I to choose? "Choose what you please, as long as you choose." There you have a foolish answer, which seems to be the outcome, however, of all Dogmatism, which will not allow us to be ignorant of that which we are ignorant.