C. S. Lewis Quotes

Our understanding is correlative to our perception.

Facts are not the truth. They only indicate where the truth may lie.

When people don't understand what they're watching, a lot of what they perceive has to do with who they themselves are.

The eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."

Experience teaches us not to assume that the obvious is clearly understood

No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.

A world view is probably an expression of self.

Intuition does not in itself amount to knowledge, yet cannot be disregarded by philosophers and psychologists.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

Life's all about perceptions.

It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

I often wish... that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Understanding is a three-edged sword. Your side, my side, and the truth.

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.

Comprehension follows perception.

All our knowledge falls with the bounds of experience.

You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself." "Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.

A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!

You know so much about me and yet you don't understand me. To know is not to understand. We could know everything and still not understand anything.

Experience by itself teaches nothing.

Nature is what you see plus what you think about it.