Born in a pre-partition Belfast in the dying years of the 19th century, Clive Staples Lewis packed a lot into his 64 years. From a childhood spent fascinated by anthropomorphism to a legacy as arguably the most respected and influential Christian author of the 20th century, the man affectionately known as Jack lived a life of tumult but brought joy to others through his famous and beloved works. Few authors possess as potent a back catalogue as C.S. Lewis, whether it is the fantastically ambitious fairytales of The Chronicles of Narnia, the theologically-specific Mere Christianity, the apologetic tones of The Screwtape Letters, or the sobering realism of A Grief Observed. When others struggled to find the words, C.S. Lewis was there to lend a helping hand.
The respect afforded to one of the world’s great authors extends to the current day, and the works of C.S. Lewis are packed with meaningful quotes that provide wisdom, clarity, and calm in all manner of situations. C.S. Lewis was a Christian writer who wasn’t afraid to question Christianity, a wordsmith who espoused positive atheism with his words and showed that there was a wide world that could exist with the seemingly juxtaposing ideas of faith and its antonym. C.S. Lewis showed that there could be such a thing as a Christian atheist, that the Christian world needed the jolts of atheism to progress. That he did it in an inspiring way with words is a joy for readers and listeners the world over.
The most memorable C.S. Lewis quotes tell us about ourselves and the world around us without being preachy, judgmental or cynical. They can be simultaneously motivational and sobering, embracing the weight of glory and the problem of pain in equal measure, always filled with God’s love, even when that love was being questioned. A theologian, a Christian, a thinker, and a proud defender of free will, there is still so much to learn from the most influential C.S. Lewis quotes.
Quotes about Love
Throughout his career, C.S. Lewis penned several writings focused on love. One of his most famous works is The Four Loves, published in July 1960, just four months before the tragic death of his wife. Soon after, he wrote A Grief Observed, in which he continued to explore his emotions through the lens of her passing. Love was never far away from the pen of C.S. Lewis at every stage of his celebrated career. Here are some of Lewis’s moving and inspiring words about love that will warm your heart, with plenty of inspiration along the way.
1.“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
2.“This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted." — C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
3.“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
4.“When they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours.”— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
5.“No people find each other more absurd than lovers.”— C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
6.“Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
7.“It is indeed only love that makes the difference: all those very same principles which are evil in the world of selfishness and necessity are good in the world of love and understanding.”— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
8.“Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed; to produce it in public is like getting your household furniture out for a move. It did very well in its place, but it looks shabby or tawdry or grotesque in the sunshine.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
9.“Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.”— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
10.“If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Quotes about faith
Clive Staples Lewis was a lot of things to a lot of people, but above all else, he was a Christian. This famous writer of children’s stories and apologetics wrote with the love of God and Jesus Christ close to his heart, with one eye on the real world and another on the serious business of heaven and beyond. As such, the best C.S. Lewis quotes about Christianity are about more than mere faith, instead of showcasing a scope of ambition that can touch everyone from militant atheists to those for whom the presence of God is the most important above all else. Such was the talent of the man, a joyful Christian unafraid of the big questions.
11.“He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
12.“People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.' I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature… Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
13.“What can you ever really know of other people's souls—of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.”— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
14.“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
15.“We do know that no person can be saved except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him." —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
16.“In Science we have been reading only the notes to a poem; in Christianity we find the poem itself.”— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
17.“The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes' them: the Christian, trying to treat everyone kindly, finds him liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
18.“At the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.”— C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
19.“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.”— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
20.“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.”— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
21.“But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.”— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
22.“He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.”― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Quotes About Bravery
Having lived through both World Wars, Lewis was no stranger to uncertainty and fear. During his adult years, he served in active duty through World War I and worked as a BBC broadcaster during World War II. Lewis’s life experiences tremendously impacted his writings. Every step of the way required bravery, an acceptance that certain things were out of one's control and consequences were to be survived as much as anything else. There is a lot to learn from the way C.S. Lewis wrote about bravery. Here are some of his top quotes about bravery that we think will help you feel a little more courageous.
23.“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.”— C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
24.“Do not dare not to dare.”— C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
25.“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
26.“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight. At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death. And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”— C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
27.“Courage, dear heart.”— C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
28.“‘I have come,’ said a deep voice behind them. They turned and saw the Lion himself, so bright and real and strong that everything else began at once to look pale and shadowy compared with him.”— C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
Quotes About Life
Without sounding reductive, all writing is about life. Even when someone is spinning a yarn focused on death, that tale is as much about the absence of life as anything else. C. S. Lewis’s breadth of writing styles and genres led him to pen some of the most inspiring quotes about life, soundbites that will help you get through difficult days and put certain aspects of existence into much-needed perspective. Here are some of our favourites.
29.“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.”— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
30.“The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
31.“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
32.“What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?”— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
33.“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”—C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
34.“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
35.“Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
36.“To know that one is dreaming is to be no longer perfectly asleep.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
37.“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
38.“The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.”― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
39.“Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy. Nature will not verify any theological or metaphysical proposition (or not in the manner we are now considering); she will help to show what it means.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
40.“All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. This is elementary.”— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
41.“Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.” — C.S. Lewis, Miracles
42.“Nothing can seem extraordinary until you have discovered what is ordinary. Belief in miracles, far from depending on an ignorance of the laws of nature, is only possible insofar as those laws are known.”— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
43.“It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realise for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
44.“We find ourselves in a world of transporting pleasures, ravishing beauties, and tantalising possibilities, but all constantly being destroyed, all coming to nothing. Nature has all the air of a good thing spoiled.”— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
45.“Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.”― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
46.“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.”— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
47.“I begin to suspect that the world is divided not only into the happy and the unhappy, but into those who like happiness and those who, odd as it seems, really don’t.”— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
48.“Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
49.“When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.”― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
50.“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future.”― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Quotes About Friendship
Friendship makes the world go round. As the old saying goes, friends are family that you choose to meet, and C.S. Lewis spent his years as a professor at Oxford University with some of his closest friends. From his writings, it is clear how much he values friendship. We picked some of our favourite quotes about friendship that highlight the emphasis Lewis placed on his interpersonal relationships. Don't be surprised if some of these quotes about friendship resonate deeply.
51.“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” —C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
52.“Friendship, then, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is spiritual and therefore faces a subtler enemy, it must, even more wholeheartedly than they, invoke the divine protection if it hopes to remain sweet.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
53.“True Friendship is the least jealous of loves.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
54.“The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
55.“The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
56.We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
57.“Friendship... is born at the moment when one man says to another ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself.'”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
58.“You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher, or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Inspirational Quotes
You never know where, when and how inspiration might strike. Whether from the perspective of Lucy in The Chronicles of Narnia or through the lens of faith in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis built life lessons into his stories, and nuggets of wisdom to guide readers and listeners through tough times and provide extra layers of joy when things are going well. Here are some of our favourite wise and inspirational sayings from this celebrated writer.
59.“No man who says, 'I'm as good as you,' believes it. He would not say it if he did.”— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
60.“The best swordsman in the world may be disarmed by a trick that's new to him.”— C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
61.“When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
62.“Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already.” — C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
63.“Things always work according to their nature.”― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
64.“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
65.“If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance.”― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
66.“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
67.“It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.”― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
68.“I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace.”— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
69.“No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city.”― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
70.“When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.”— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
71.“No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake, and what men call originality will come unsought.”— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
72.“No one is told any story but their own.”― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
73.“One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.”― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
74.“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.”— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
75."Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
76.“All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.”— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
77.“For what you see and what you hear depends a good deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
78.“All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
79.“No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice.”― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
Quotes about Narnia
For all his theological works and tremendously detailed understandings of psalms, morals, ideas and the rest, it is The Chronicles of Narnia that shines brightest in the C.S. Lewis catalogue. As a child, Lewis was an avid reader of Beatrix Potter, and The Tales of Peter Rabbit were a huge inspiration for The Chronicles of Narnia, a fantastical fairytale that arguably transcended its contemporary to become one of the most famous and successful children’s stories of the 20th century. A thrillingly creative tale that has appealed to adults as much as younger listeners. The Chronicles of Narnia is packed with witty takes on life, told through the unique lens of its kaleidoscopic characters, as seen in this collection of most magnificent quotes. C.S. Lewis was a lot of things to a lot of people, but he was a magical writer above all else.
80.“'This is the land of Narnia,' said the Faun, 'where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea.'”— C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
81.“'Welcome, Prince,' said Aslan. 'Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?' 'I - I don’t think I do, Sir,' said Caspian. 'I am only a kid.' 'Good,' said Aslan. 'If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been proof that you were not.'”— C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
82.“This was bad grammar of course, but that is how beavers talk when they are excited; I mean, in Narnia—in our world they usually don't talk at all.”— C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
83.“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve... 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.”— C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
84.“'Aslan,' said Lucy, 'you're bigger.' 'That is because you are older, little one,' answered he. 'Not because you are?' 'I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.'”— C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
85.“I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.”— C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
86.“But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs...The signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”— C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
87.“'I am,' said Aslan. 'But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.'” — C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
88.“Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.” — C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
89.“All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”— C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
One of history’s great writers, Clive Staples Lewis left an incredible legacy of immense value to all who encounter it. In many ways, C.S. Lewis best embodied the task of the modern educator, espousing the power of mere kindness in an increasingly volatile world while accepting the contradictory values of Christianity, atheism, and the rest. We can learn as much from C.S. Lewis in the 21st century as we did in the 20th, whether through the fabulous creativity of Narnia, the hand-on-dear-heart honesty of The Four Loves, and all the rest. No matter the situation, there is probably a C.S. Lewis quote that can provide a little bit of inspiration.
