C. S. Lewis Quotes

He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil.

Affliction is a school of virtue; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning.

I'm hardly a saint.

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

If you think that you can sin, and then by cries avert the consequences of sin, you insult God's character.

As he weeps to wicked birds of prey, who pick up on his bread crumb sins, and there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden.

But he who never sins can little boast Compared to him who goes and sins no more!

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!

Only sinners need saviors.

Let thy vices die before thee.

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness.

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.

For the Christian, humility is absolutely indispensable. Without it there can be no self-knowledge, no repentance, no faith and no salvation.

The idea that God will pardon a rebel who has not given up his rebellion is contrary both to the Scriptures and to common sense. How horrible to contemplate a church full of persons who have been pardoned but who still love sin and hate the ways of righteousness. And how much more horrible to think of heaven as filled with sinners who had not repented nor changed their way of living.

Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.

I've done some dastardly things but what can I do except make amends and apologize?

Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.

Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.

A Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent.

There's forgiveness if you ask forgiveness, you truly repent, and you do make an honest effort not to do that anymore.

If there is a virtue in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

But an apology too — you think you’re giving something, but you’re not. You’re really asking for something. You’re asking for forgiveness, you’re asking for the other injured person to make it okay for you. Apologies were harder work for the person getting one than the person giving one.