Lewis Quotes & Sayings

I was covering the Supreme Court when it decided Gideon v. Wainright, and the case has always had special meaning for me. — Anthony Lewis

And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. — Lewis Carroll

Creu Gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration — Gwyneth Lewis

The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things. — Lewis Carroll

That was the problem with money: What people did with it had consequences, but they were so remote from the original action that the mind never connected the one with the other. — Michael Lewis

So many things have now become interesting to me because at first I had to do them whether I liked them or not, and thus one is kicked into conquering new countries where one is afterwards at home. — C.S. Lewis

Attacks on alternative religious groups are attempts to psychologize - to medicalize - a controversy that, on deeper examination, is clearly a controversy over ideology and lifestyle. — James R. Lewis

As hard as I try to sound tough and dark, I still sound cute. — Jenny Lewis

As Mr. R. U. Sayee has well said: 'It should be clear a priori that fairy lore must have developed as a result of modifications and accretions received in different countries and at many periods, though we must not overlook the part played by tradition in providing a mould that to some extent determines the nature of later additions.' It must also be self-evident that a great deal of confusion has been caused by the assumption that some spirit-types were fairies which in a more definite sense are certainly not of elfin provenance. In some epochs, indeed, Faerie appears to have been regarded as a species of limbo to which all 'pagan' spirits - to say nothing of defeated gods, monsters, and demons - could be banished, along with the personnel of Olympus and the rout of witchcraft. Such types, however, are usually fairly easy of detection. — Lewis Spence

To know what would have happened, child? said Aslan. No. Nobody is ever told that. — C.S. Lewis

Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And He invites us all to forgive each other. — Lewis B. Smedes

The doors of hell are locked from the inside! — C.S. Lewis

I'm afraid it's not much use to you, Mr. Rumblebuffin.'
Not at all. Not at all.' said the giant politely. 'Never met a nicer hankerchee. — C.S. Lewis

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him — C.S. Lewis

We must give as much weight to the arousal of the emotions and to the expression of moral and aesthetic values as we now give to science, to invention, to practical organization. One without the other is impotent. — Lewis Mumford

The Pentagon Papers case stands today as a barrier to silence by official edict. — Anthony Lewis

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. — C.S. Lewis

Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage - is it not in some ways an advantage - that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? — C.S. Lewis

It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. — C.S. Lewis

Relax, Salazar. I'm just messing around. Besides, I have my eye on somebody right now."
"Who?" Danielle and Colt said at the same time.
"That's on a need-to-know basis," Oz said, "and right now neither one of you needs to know. — Jon S. Lewis

I can't re-examine work I did in the past with pride. — Daniel Day-Lewis

I came into my teens unaware that most Americans, blacks as well as whites, were ignorant of the main facts of Negro history. And so it was the facts of other histories that I found most intriguing. I fell into a U.S. history major by chance late in my second year at Fisk University. — David Levering Lewis

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. — Lewis Spence

The programmers decided the steps everyone on board Hyperion would need to take to do everything from dimming the lights to raising the sails. — Michael Lewis

An athlete and actor are really two different temperaments, night and day. As an athlete you really keep things out and as an actor you really bring things in. — Carl Lewis

I think a lot of people can relate to that school is pretty lousy for a lot of people, and it just shows that you don't have to be perfect and you can still be a hero. — Matthew Lewis

The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's vision ... You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself. — Lewis B. Smedes

Well, biology today as I see it has an amiable look - quite different from the 19th-century view that the whole arrangement of nature is hostile, 'red in tooth and claw.' That came about because people misread Darwin's 'survival of the fittest.' — Lewis Thomas

She spoke seven languages, including Mandarin and Polish, and was finishing up her master's in Intercultural Misunderstanding, which just has to be Europe's next growth industry. — Michael Lewis

My first kiss can be summed up in one word - unsuccessful. — Huey Lewis

I must say my prayers today whether I feel devout or not; but that is only as I must learn my grammar if I am ever to read the poets. — C.S. Lewis

The mind-body clash has disguised the truth that psychotherapy is physiology. When a person starts therapy, he isn't beginning a pale conversation; he is stepping into a somatic state of relatedness. (168) — Thomas Lewis

I have a strange relationship with time. I'm not aware of it passing. — Daniel Day-Lewis

By repenting, one acknowledges them as sins-therefore not to be repeated. — C.S. Lewis

We are bidden to 'put on Christ', to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little. — C.S. Lewis

Every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us - an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof 'God did it' and 'I did it' are both true descriptions. — C.S. Lewis

You don't know much,' said the Duchess; 'and that's a fact. — Lewis Carroll

What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning
and a child's more imporant than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands. — Lewis Carroll

I think around the league, I'm getting more respect. And that's great. — Reggie Lewis

A powerful dragon crying its eyes out under the moon in a deserted valley is a sight and a sound hardly to be imagined. — C.S. Lewis

Books, I knew then and now, give body to our ideas and imaginations, make them flesh in the world; a bookstore is the city where our fleshed-out inner selves reside. — Lewis Buzbee

Music. A meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience. — C.S. Lewis

In avoiding any situations reminiscent of the past trauma, or any initiative that might involve future planning and risk, traumatized people deprive themselves of those new opportunities for successful coping that might mitigate the effect of the traumatic experience. Thus, constrictive symptoms, though they may represent an attempt to defend against overwhelming emotional states, exact a high price for whatever protection they afford. They narrow and deplete the quality of life and ultimately perpetuate the effects of the traumatic event. — Judith Lewis Herman

A man who can tell a good story can make a good living as a broker. — Michael Lewis

He'll be coming and going. One day you'll see him and another you won't. — C.S. Lewis

We must lay before him what is in us; not what ought to be in us. — C.S. Lewis

For every moral principle, there's an equal and opposite government program — Erne Lewis

You invaded Narnia. You have no more right leading than Miraz does.
Peter Pevensie: You, him, your father! Narnia's better off without the lot of you! — C.S. Lewis

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

If Christianity is only one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. — C.S. Lewis

The difference between guilt and shame is very clear
in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are. A person feels guilt because he did something wrong. A person feels shame because he is something wrong. We may feel guilty because we lied to our mother. We may feel shame because we are not the person our mother wanted us to be. — Lewis B. Smedes

I want to be part of movies that have important and interesting subjects but are not depressing and are rather satirical and funny. — Terence Lewis

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die. — C.S. Lewis

For agnosticism is, in a sense, what I am preaching. I do not wish to reduce the sceptical element in your minds. I am only suggesting that it need not be reserved exclusively for the New Testament and the Creeds. Try doubting something else. — C.S. Lewis

Ink is the great cure for all human ills. — C.S. Lewis

If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have ... they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word. — Lewis B. Smedes

Simon was still trying to work out how Shadowhunter government and also Shadowhunter family trees worked. They all seemed to be related to each other and it was very disturbing. — Cassandra Clare

Medicine labours to restore 'natural' structure or 'normal' function. But greed, egoism, self-deception,and self-pity are not abnormal in the same sense as astigmatism or a floating kidney. For who, in Heaven's name, would describe as natural or normal any man from whom these failings were wholly absent? 'Natural,' if you like, in a quite different sense; archnatural, unfallen. We have only seen one such Man. And he was not at all like the psychologist's picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen. You can't really be 'well adjusted' to your world if it says 'you havea devil' and ends by nailing you up naked to a stake of wood. — C.S. Lewis

The great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go God's love for us does not. — C.S. Lewis

Honey Citrus Fruit Kabab — Lewis Carroll

Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down onto the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree tops. — C.S. Lewis

I discovered in belles-lettres that the Giver can be transformed into his own Gift, that is, into a pure object. Chance had made me a man, generosity would make me a book. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE — Lewis Hyde

It is not settled happiness but momentary joy that glorifies the past. — C.S. Lewis

Different fights bring out different things. I consider myself a seasoned professional. I have done things in the gym that have not come out yet. People would be amazed if they saw me train. — Lennox Lewis

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. [ ... ] There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.[ ... ]The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. — C.S. Lewis

I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. — C.S. Lewis

When He'd told his mother he wanted to go to military school so he could though up, she'd given him a strange look. (Not as strange as if he'd said he wanted to go to demon-fighting school so he could drink from the Mortal Cup, Ascend to the ranks of Shadowhunter, and just maybe get back the memories that had been stolen from him in a nearby hell dimension, but close.) — Cassandra Clare

Can somebody explain to me why Pepsi and Coke advertise? Are we missing something? Seriously, everyone in this room has drank enough Pepsi and Coke in their lifetime they could piss it for a week. — Lewis Black

Most Christians seem to have two kinds of lives, their so-called real life and their so-called religious one. Not (C. S.) Lewis. The barrier so many of us find between the visible and the invisible world was just not there for him. It had become natural for Lewis to live ordinary life in a supernatural way. — Walter Hooper

Read and Re-Read
Re-reading, we always find a new book. — C.S. Lewis

It is not your business to succeed, but to do right. When you have done so the rest lies with god. — C.S. Lewis

Courage, Brave Heart — C.S. Lewis

It is awesome to feel you are carrying on the family name. — Daniel Day-Lewis

Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do. — C.S. Lewis

We procured from an Indian a weasel perfectly white except the extremity of the tail which was black: great numbers of wild geese are passing to the south, but their flight is too high for us to procure any of them. — Meriwether Lewis

At the moment, the general perception ... is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. — Bernard Lewis

If there's anything I've learned it's that love is an unstoppable human drive, fierce and universal, and that sex is the physical manifestation of love. And that sex without love is missing the whole damn point. Sex brings us home to love. — Sarah Katherine Lewis

I pray because I can't help myself ... — C.S. Lewis

A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed
Now if you're ready, Oysters, dear, We can begin to feed! — Lewis Carroll

C. S. Lewis pointed out that some people are angry with God for His not existing, and others for His existing but for failing to do as mortals would have Him do. Instead of such childishness, we are urged to know God and to learn of His attributes. — Neal A. Maxwell

The dangers of apparent self-sufficiency explain why Our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly success. — C.S. Lewis

Joseph Campbell understood critical doctrines of Christianity as myth and maintained that understanding myth was a key to making sense of key doctrines of Christianity in any society, including a highly-technological one. C. S. Lewis understood myth as one means among many used by God to point people to His Son, Jesus Christ. — James W Menzies

Also, I'm sleeping with your mom. Just thought you should know. — Cassandra Clare

Make no mistake,' He says, 'if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less. — C.S. Lewis

An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else. — C.S. Lewis

Christ says, Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good ... Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked
the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours. — C.S. Lewis

Flying alone! Nothing gives such a sense of mastery over time over mechanism, mastery indeed over space, time, and life itself, as this. — Cecil Day-Lewis

Sleep came like a fruit which falls into the hand almost before you have touched it. — C.S. Lewis

we had better do what we have to do at once. — C.S. Lewis

We haven't any and you're too young. — Lewis Carroll

Completion is a goal, but we hope it is never the end. — Sarah Lewis

The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation you can make of it what you will — Lewis H. Lapham

He said brokenly many things beautiful in their common-ness. — Sinclair Lewis

If ever they remembered their life in this world it was as one remembers a dream. — C.S. Lewis

I know my boundaries. I know the limits to the car. — Lewis Hamilton

For me, there's never any bad blood - unless you do something to me. — Lennox Lewis

If you look at the people who make up the Bravo landscape from Jeff Lewis to Rachel Zoe and Padma Lakshmi and Tabatha Coffey and the 'Millionaire Matchmaker,' these are very strong personalities that people love to watch and that you ... don't see anywhere else. — Andy Cohen

We're in a world where everything, even a lamp-post, comes to life and grows. Now I wonder what kind of a seed a lamp-post grows from ... — C.S. Lewis

And of course, the more enchanted you get, the more you feel that you are not enchanted at all — C.S. Lewis

I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This becomes clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow - getting into my morning bath is usually one of them - that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right. This is good and tonic. — C.S. Lewis