The Quotable Lewis

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The Quotable Lewis

Copyright © 1990 by Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root. All rights reserved.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a trademark of C. S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd.

Extracts from Cross-Examination are taken from Decision magazine, September-October 1963, copyright © 1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Extracts from the following works are used by permission of The Bodley Head: Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength.

Extracts from the following works, copyright © on date shown, are reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press: The Discarded Image (1964); An Experiment in Criticism (1961); Selected Literary Essays (1969); Spenser’s Images of Life (1967); Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1966); Studies in Words (1967).

Extracts from the following works of C. S. Lewis are reproduced by permission of William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. as publisher and copyright editor: The Abolition of Man; Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity, edited by Walter Hooper; George MacDonald: An Anthology, by George MacDonald, edited and with introduction by C. S. Lewis; The Great Divorce; The Horse and His Boy; The Last Battle; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Magician’s Nephew; Mere Christianity; Miracles; The Pilgrim’s Regress; Poems, edited by Walter Hooper; Prince Caspian; The Problem of Pain; The Screwtape Letters; Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces; The Silver Chair; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses.

Extracts from the following works, copyright © by C. S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd. on date shown, are reproduced by permission of Curtis Brown, London: The Personal Heresy (1939); God in the Dock (1970); Rehabilitations (1939); Essays Presented to Charles Williams (1947).

Extracts from the following works are reprinted by permission of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.: Christian Reflections; Letters to an American Lady; Taliessin Through Logres, The Region of the Summer Stars, Arthurian Torso.

Extracts from the following works of C. S. Lewis, and copyright © by C. S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd. on date shown, are reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.: Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper (1985); The Dark Tower: And Other Stories, edited by Walter Hooper (1977); The Four Loves (1960 by Helen Joy Lewis; renewed 1988 by Arthur Owen Barfield); Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited by W. H. Lewis (1966); Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964); Narrative Poems, edited by Walter Hooper (1969); Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories, edited by Walter Hooper (1966); On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, edited by Walter Hooper (1965); Poems, edited by Walter Hooper (1964); Present Concerns, edited by Walter Hooper (1986); Reflections on the Psalms (1958; renewed 1986 by Arthur Owen Barfield); Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics (1984); Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (1955; renewed 1983 by Arthur Owen Barfield); Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1957; renewed 1985 by Arthur Owen Barfield); The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (1960; renewed 1988 by Arthur Owen Barfield).

Extracts from the following works are reprinted by permission of Harper & Rowe, Publishers, Inc.: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, copyright © 1962 by N. W. Clerk; A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, copyright © 1977, 1980 by Sheldon Vanauken.

Extracts from the following works of C. S. Lewis, and copyright © by C. S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd. on date shown, are reprinted with permission of MacMillan Publishing Company: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, edited by Walter Hooper (1979); Letters to Children, edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead (1985).

Extracts from the following works, copyright © on date shown, are reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press: The Allegory of Love (1936); English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (1954); A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942).

Extracts from Letters: C. S. Lewis/Don Giovanni Calabria, copyright © 1988 English language translation Martin Moynihan. Reprinted with permission of Servant Publications, P.O. Box 8617, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-50921. ISBN 978-0-8423-5115-7.

109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

96 95 94 93 92 91 90

This book is dedicated with love and affection to our wives: Nita Martindale and Claudia Root

Table of Contents

A  B  C  D  E

F  G  H  I  J

K  L  M  N  O

P  Q  R  S  T

U  V  W  Z

Index

Preface

Introduction

A

Absolute Values

Addison, Joseph

Adoration

Adulthood

Advice

Affection

Aging

Aging: Middle Age

Aging: Youth

Agnosticism

Allegory

Ambition

America

America, Discovery of

Angels

Anger

Anxiety

Apologetics

Architecture

Art and Literature

Art Appreciation

Art, Duty of

Art, Essence of

Art, Function of

Art, Value of

Ascham, Roger

Aslan

Atheism

Austen, Jane

B

Bacon, Francis

Baptism

Beauty

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Belief

Belief, Christian

Bereavement

Bible as Literature

Bible, Essence of the

Bible: Inspiration

Bible Interpretation

Bible: Modern translations

Bible Scholars

Bible Translation

Biography

Body

Body and Spirit

Books

Books, Christian

Bores

Bourgeoisie

Bulverism

Bunyan, John

Bureaucracy

C

Calvin, John

Calvin, John: Institutes

Cambridge/Oxford

Capital Punishment

Catholicism: and Protestantism

Cats

Certainty

Chapman, George

Character, Christian

Character, Personal

Chastity

Chaucer, Geoffrey

Chaucer, Geoffrey: Parlement of Foules

Chaucer, Geoffrey: Troilus and Cryseide

Child Rearing

Childhood

Children

Children’s Literature

China

Chivalry

Choice

Christlikeness

Christian Living

Christian Perspective

Christian Year, the

Christianity And

Christianity and Comfort

Christianity and Controversy

Christianity and Culture

Christianity and Its Detractors

Christianity and Life-style

Christianity and Literature

Christianity and Social Good

Christianity and the Ancient World

Christianity and the Human Condition

Christianity and the Intellect

Christianity and Truth

Christianity, Essence of

Christianity: Evidences

Christianity: Intellectual Honesty in Exploring

Christianity, Popular

Christmas

Church Attendance

Church: Body of Christ

Church: Diversity

Church: Divisions

Church: Endurance

Church: Function

Church History

Church Music

Church: Unity

Church of England

Circumstances

Civilization

Clergy

Cliques

Colet, John

Comedy

Commitment

Common People

Communism

Companionship

Comparisons

Conscience

Contentment

Conversion

Conversion, Excitement at

Conviction

Correspondence

Courage

Courtesy

Coverdale, Myles

Cowper, William

Cranmer, Thomas

Creation

Creativity

Criminal Justice

Criticism

Criticism, Anthropological

Cruelty

D

Daniel, Samuel

Dante

De La Mare, Walter

De Meun, Jean

De Troyes, Chretien

Death

Death: Lazarus

Deception

Decisions

Decorum

Definitions

Democracy

Dependence on God

Depravity

Design

Despair

Devils

Devotions

Didacticism

Disappointment

Discipline

Divorce

Doctrine

Donne, John

Donne, John: Love Poetry

Doubt

Drayton, Michael

Dreams

Dryden, John

Dumas, Alexandre

Dunbar, William

Duty

Dying to Self

E

Easter

Economics

Education

Education and Christianity

Education, Decline of

Education, Democracy in

Education, Function of

Education, Goal of

Education, Purpose of

Education, Quality of

Education: Teacher/Pupil Relationship

Embarrassment

Endurance

England, Religion in

Envy

Equality

Equality and Christianity

Eternal Life

Eternity

Ethics

Evangelism

Evil in society

Evil Men

Evil Motivation of

Evolution

Exaggeration

Excerpts

Expectations of Others

Expectations, Realistic

Experience

Extremes

F

Fairy Tales

Faith

Faith and Works

Fall, The

Fame

Family

Family Manners

Fantasy

Fasting

Fatherhood

Fear

Feelings

Firsthand Knowledge

Forgetfulness

Forgiveness

Free Will

Freudian Criticism

Friendship

Friendship, Dangers of

Fun

Futility

Future

G

Gambling

Gascoigne, George

Gender

Giving

Glory

God: Approaching Him

God: Completeness

God: Creator

God: Eternity

God: Gender Imagery for

God: Glorifying Him

God: Glory

God: Goodness

God: Holiness

God: Image of

God: Indescribability

God: Infinity

God: Language about

God: Lewis’s Childhood Conception

God: Love

God: Modern Attitude

God: Omnipresence

God: Our Need for

God: Personalness

God: Providence

God: Reality

God: Self-existence

God: Sovereignty

God: Timelessness

God: Transcendence/Immanence

God’s Will

Gods, Greek

Good And Evil

Good Life

Good Works

Goodness

Government

Grace

Grammar, Rules of

Greatness

Greed

Grief

Growth

Guests

Guilt

H

Happiness

Happiness and Christianity

Hatred

Health

Heaven

Heaven: Longing for

Heaven: Ultimate Reality

Hell: Escape

Hell: God’s Mercy

Hell: Judgment

Hell: Judgment and Mercy

Hell: Mental Torment

Hell: Self-centeredness

Hell: Self-chosen

Hell: Separation from God

Hell: Separation from Heaven

Hell: Separation from Humanity

Hell: Unfulfilled Potential

Hero Worship

Heywood, John

Hierarchy

Historians

History Books

History, Christian View of

History, Function of

History, Importance of

History, Periods of

History, Philosophy of

History, Scientific

History, Skeptics of

Holiness

Holy Spirit

Home

Homesickness

Homosexuality

Hooker, Richard

Hope

Horizon

Houseman, A. E.

Human Desires

Human Destiny

Human Nature

Human Situation

Human Spirit

Humanism

Humility

Humor

Husbands

Hymns

Hypocrisy

I

Identity

Images

Imagination

Immortality

Incarnation

Independence

Influence

Inhibitions

Innocence

Inspiration

Instinct

Interruptions

Intolerance

Introspection

J

Jargon

Jesus: Creator

Jesus: Creator/Word

Jesus: Death of

Jesus: God Incarnate

Jesus: God, Lunatic, or Evil Man

Jesus: Relationship to the Father

Jesus: Savior

Jesus: Second Coming

Jesus: Son of God

Jesus: Teaching

Jesus: Unfallen

Jews

Johnson, Samuel

Joy

Joy: As Sehnsucht or Longing

Judgment, The Last

Jungian Criticism

K

Keats, John: Endymion

Kilns, The

King James Version

Kipling, Rudyard

Knowledge

Knox, John

L

Labels

Lamb, Charles

Language

Latimer, Hugh

Law

Lawrence, D. H.

Laymen

Leadership

Lewis, Albert

Lewis, C. S.: Abolition of Man

Lewis, C. S.: Evangelistic Writing

Lewis, C. S.: His Writing

Lewis, C. S.: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

Lewis, C. S.: Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lewis, C. S.: Mere Christianity

Lewis, C. S.: Mere Christianity in his books

Lewis, C. S.: Out of the Silent Planet

Lewis, C. S.: Perelandra

Lewis, C. S.: Pilgrim’s Regress

Lewis, C. S.: Screwtape Letters

Lewis, C. S.: That Hideous Strength

Lewis, C. S.: Till We Have Faces

Lewis, Joy Davidman Gresham

Liberty

Life

Life and Death

Literalism

Literary Criticism

Literary History

Literature

Literature, Classic

Literature, Contemporary

Liturgiology

Longing

Love

Love: Abuses

Love: Being Lovable

Love: Charity

Love: Dangers

Love: God’s Love for Us

Love: Our Love for God

Love: Our Love for Jesus

Love: Priorities

Love: Romantic

Loyalty

Lust

Luther, Martin

Lyly, John

M

MacDonald, George

Machiavelli: The Prince

Marlowe, Christopher

Marriage

Marriage or Singleness

Marxism

Masculine

Materialism and Christianity

Materialism, Philosophical

Maturity

Memory

Mercy

Metaphor

Middle Ages

Middle Ages: Literature

Miracles

Missions

Money

Moral Relapse

Moralists

Morality

More, Sir Thomas

More, Sir Thomas: Supplication of Souls

More, Sir Thomas: Utopia

Mornings

Motives

Mystery

Mysticism

Myth

Myth: and Christianity

N

Nashe, Thomas

Nationalism

Natural Gifts, Danger of

Naturalism

Nature

Nature and Christianity

Nature and Religion

Nature, Laws of

Necessary Evils

Newspapers

Nonsense

Nostalgia

Novella

Novels

Novelty

O

Obedience

One Way

Opinion, Popular

Opposition

Order from Chaos

Ordered Life

Originality

Orwell, George: 1984 and Animal Farm

Outsiders

P

Pacifism

Pain

Pantheism

Parliament

Patriotism

Paul, St.

Peace

Peer Pressure

Persecution

Personhood

Perspective

Pessimism

Philosophy: Dualism

Philosophy, Essence of

Philosophy, Good and Bad

Planning

Plato

Platonism and Christianity

Poetic Revolutions

Poetry

Poetry, Ancient and Modern

Poetry, Modern

Poets and Poetry

Poets, Metaphysical

Political Power

Politics

Politics and Christianity

Politics, Christians in

Possessiveness

Post-Christian Europe

Post-Christian Man

Power

Prayer

Prayer: Answers

Prayer: Communion with God

Prayer: Confession

Prayer: Distractions

Prayer: Duty

Prayer: Petition

Prayer: Timing/Habits

Preaching

Predestination

Prejudice

Pretentiousness

Pride

Priorities

Progress

Prose

Protestantism

Psalms

Psalms: Imprecatory

Psychiatrists

Purgatory

Puritanism

Puritanism: Sexuality

Purity

Purpose

Q

Questions: Moral, Philosophical, and Theological

R

Reading

Reading Old Books

Reality

Reason

Rebellion: Against God

Redemption

Reformation

Reincarnation

Religion

Religion and Domestic Life

Religion, Dangers of

Resurrection: Jesus

Resurrection: Jesus and the Saved

Resurrection: The Saved

Resurrection: The Saved and Animals

Revelation

Reverence

Rights

Romance (As a Literary Genre)

Ruskin, John

S

Salvation

Sanctification

Satan

Sayers, Dorothy

Scholarship

Science and Christianity

Scots

Scott, Sir Walter

Self-Concept

Self-Control

Self-Description

Self-Giving

Self-Image

Selfishness

Sermon on the Mount

Servanthood

Shakespeare, William

Shakespeare, William: Hamlet

Shakespeare, William: King Lear

Shakespeare, William: The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare, William: Sonnets

Shakespeare, William: The Winter’s Tale

Shelley, Percy

Shelley, Percy: Prometheus Unbound

Sidney, Sir Philip

Sidney, Sir Philip: Arcadia

Sidney, Sir Philip: Astrophel and Stella

Sidney, Sir Philip: Defence of Poesie

Sin

Sin, Shame over

Sincerity

Sixteenth-Century England

Sixteenth-Century Literature

Sixteenth-Century Religion

Skelton, John

Skepticism

Sleep

Sloth

Smoking

Snobbery

Sonnet Sequence

Spenser, Edmund

Spenser, Edmund: Epithalamion

Spenser, Edmund: The Faerie Queene

Spiritual Growth

Spirituality

Stereotypes

Story

Students

Style

Suffering

Surrender

Surrey, Earl of (Henry Howard)

Survival

Suspicion

Swift, Jonathan

Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels

Symbol

Symbolism

T

Tasso: Gerusalemme

Taste

Technology

Technology and Christianity

Teetotalism

Temperance

Temptation

Thanksgiving

Theology and Politics

Theology in Daily Life

Theology, Liberal

Theory

Thomas õ Kempis

Time

Tolerance

Tolkien, J. R. R.

Tolkien, J. R. R.: The Lord of the Rings

Tolstoy, Leo

Translation

Transposition

Tribulation

Trilemma

Trinity

Trust

Truth

Truth, Discovery of

Tyndale, William

Tyndale, William: Bible Translation

Tyndale, William: Compared with Thomas More

Tyranny

U

Understanding

Unselfishness

Utilitarianism

V

Value Judgments

Vicariousness

Virgil: Similes

Virgin Birth

Virtue

Vivisection

Vocation

Vulgarity

W

War

War: Atomic Bomb

War, Nuclear

Weather

Williams, Charles

Williams, Charles: He Came Down from Heaven

Williams, Charles: The Place of the Lion

Wisdom

Women: Emancipation

Women in the Church

Women: Sexuality and Justice

Words

Work

Work, Compulsive

World Religions and Christianity

World Religions: Hinduism

World Religions: Islam

World Religions: monotheism

Worldview

Worship: Mary Magdalene

Writing

Writing, Autobiographical

Writing, Christian

Writing, Creative

Z

Zeal

Bibliographies

About the Editors

Notes

Preface

For students, speakers, writers, and anyone who desires to contemplate great thought on a particular topic, this anthology can be put to use in several ways. You can use it for:

1. Reference. Who has not at times wished to reclaim the whole of a quote only partially remembered, forgetting even the book in which it appeared? Here’s help.

2. Access. Several excerpts on a given topic are often gathered into one place, and the index points to related ideas.

3. Illustration. These excerpts help bring speeches, sermons, lectures, and papers to life. An author as quotable as Lewis is a godsend to communicators of every kind.

4. Understanding. There is enough substance in these excerpts to deepen thinking on a wide range of topics.

5. Perspective. A sense of the vast panorama of Lewis’s remarkable mind emerges from even a brief survey of these selections.

6. Browsing. This Lewis anthology can fill reflective moments with pleasure and instruction—nourishment for the mind, spirit, and imagination.

Several other anthologies of Lewis are in print, and their purposes vary from devotional readings to collections of quotes on specified topics. This anthology is unique for two reasons. First, comprehensiveness. It draws on all of Lewis’s published work (except uncollected letters and book reviews), something never before attempted. We have tried to represent the full range of Lewis’s thought—not just the popular or catchy phrase but the representative treatment, whenever excerptible, across the entire, varied range of his work. We have read every published book, including collections of sermons, short stories, juvenilia, articles, addresses, poems, and letters—some sixty books—to insure comprehensive coverage (see the bibliographies).

Second, organization and indexing. The table of contents lists the topics that are included, arranged alphabetically. Many excerpts are so rich and suggestive that they could logically be categorized under a half dozen topics. For space considerations, however, an excerpt is printed only once. Consult the index for additional quotations on a related topic and for any passage on the fringes of memory that you are trying to track down. Of necessity we made many judgment calls, not only for topic selection but for what to quote and how much. If one of your favorite Lewis quotes is nowhere to be found, we apologize in advance.

Whenever a topic includes multiple excerpts, we arranged the excerpts in chronological order. This may allow you to discover some development in Lewis’s thought—how an idea in bud early on opens into full flower in his later work. For example, before Lewis became a Christian he appears to have been somewhat anti-Semitic. After his conversion he developed sympathies for the Jews and was appreciative of their literature. Ultimately he married Joy Davidman Gresham, who was of Jewish heritage. (We have not attempted to hide anything; some excerpts reveal Lewis’s idiosyncrasies and ideas at odds with our own belief and practice.)

You can also discover from multiple excerpts within a topic how Lewis works out a thought from genre to genre. He expressed most of his central ideas in nonfiction, fiction, letters, and sometimes poems. We were impressed anew with how mature and settled Lewis’s ideas were at an early date. The soaring imagination that created Narnia and Perelandra is anchored in a unifying concept of who God is, who we are as his fallen creatures, the destiny of humankind, the need for redemption and perfection in Christ. Entry after entry reveals and amplifies this core through a range of applications. Regardless of the genre, his conservative and biblical center always holds.

A Few Technical Details

Here are the main criteria we used for selecting excerpts. A quotation should: