Obviously, there’s no sure way to quantify any preacher’s impact, but the numbers for C.S. Lewis are telling.
Though he was a student of Scripture, C.S. Lewis is probably best known for his role as a great activist, writer and thinker and from his works such as The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Space Trilogy. Still making an impact, his Bible teachings and writings remain just as applicable today as they were more 50 years ago.
C.S. Lewis has written dozens of stories, poems, essays and novels.
Perhaps one reason for C.S. Lewis continuing legacy is his ability to speak plainly and clearly. He is immensely quotable. The writings of Lewis have been translated into 30 languages, selling millions of copies.
“C. S. Lewis is one of the most quoted authors on Twitter.”
He had much wisdom to share—his numerous books are well worth reading in full—but for now, here are some of his quotes that have helped shape modern Christian thought.
- “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.”
- “Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.”
- “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
- “He’ll be coming and going” he had said. “One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down–and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”
- “We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
- “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. “
- “Oh, Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!”
- “There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”
- “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
- “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.”
- “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”
- “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
- “But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.”
- “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”
- 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.”
- “The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self–all your wishes and precautions–to Christ.”
- “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
- “God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”
- “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different…”
- “When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.”
- “One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness.”
- “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
- “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.”
- “You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,” said the Lion.”
- “Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do.”
- “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”
- “In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s, we do not accept them easily enough.”
- “Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”
- “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.”
- “When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive.”
- “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.”
- “When you are arguing against God you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.”
- “We’re not doubting that God will do the best for us; we’re wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
- “The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.”
- “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
- “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.”
- “Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar.”
- “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”
- “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”
- “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.”
- “Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.”
- “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
- “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
- “The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”
- “The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.”
- “I once read the sentence ‘I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache and about lying awake.’ That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.”
- “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.”
- “God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”
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C.S. Lewis had the God-given ability to relate truth about God and about life to every age-group, every socio-economic level, and every culture in such a way that they wanted to read more. He used that gift to the fullest. I especially like #28 for this Christmas season: “Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world”. Thanks for sharing those quotes from one of my favorite authors.