{"author":"C.S. Lewis","author_id":"C.S.+Lewis","total_quotes":859,"quotes":[{"text":"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["christianity","temptation"],"id":407,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"His whole effort, therefore, will be to get the man’s mind off the subject of his own value altogether. He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than that he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one. Your efforts to instil either vain glory or false modesty into the patient will therefore be met from the Enemy’s side with the obvious reminder that a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame...The Enemy will also try to render real in the patient’s mind...The doctrine that they did not create themselves, that their talents were given them, and that they might as well be proud of the colour of their hair...Even of his sins the Enemy does not want him to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["christianity","cs-lewis","the-screwtape-letters"],"id":499,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"The author says the mark of a true rest your creature is an inability to be still without a kind of resignation.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["passivism","rest","worship"],"id":1577,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"Every story of conversion is a story of blessed defeat.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["conversion","grace","humility","repentance","salvation"],"id":2522,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"Every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, which will 'turn the necessity to glorious gain.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["adversity","providence","trials"],"id":3627,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"Are you not thirsty?' said the Lion.'I am dying of thirst,' said Jill.'Then drink,' said the Lion.'May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?' said Jill.The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.'Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?' said Jill.'I make no promise,' said the Lion.Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.'Do you eat girls?' she said.'I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,' said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.'I daren't come and drink,' said Jill.'Then you will die of thirst,' said the Lion.'Oh dear!' said Jill, coming another step nearer. 'I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.'There is no other stream,' said the Lion.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["salvation"],"id":3841,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"...You won't get eternal life by just feeling the presence of God in flowers or music.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["eternal-life","flowers","god-s-will","music"],"id":3977,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"God's presence is not the same as the feeling of God's presence and He may be doing most for us when we think He is doing least.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["christianity","gods-presence","hurting","struggle"],"id":4134,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will - that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings - then we may take it (that) it is worth paying.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["faith","god","jesus"],"id":4816,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"},{"text":"I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, hoever, turns out to be not a state but a process.","author":"C.S. Lewis","tags":["grief","process","sorrow"],"id":5083,"author_id":"C.S.+Lewis"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":859,"pages":86,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}