Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a staunch atheist, who converted to Christianity in his early thirties, and became one of the most articulate Christian apologists of all time. He had a unique way of reaching people with his Christian beliefs through his extensive writing career. Some of his classic works include Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia. His writings have been cited by Christian apologists for generations. Below are some of his most famous quotes.1
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
“Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties.”
“Don’t shine so that others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see HIM.”
“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.”
“The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can’t supply is proof that Heaven must be our home.”
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”
“Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist.”
“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”
“If you never take risks, you’ll never accomplish great things. Everybody dies, but not everyone has lived.”
“If you live for the next world, you get this one in the deal; but if you live only for this world, you lose them both.”
“I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.”
“You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
“If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world.”
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
“The great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go God’s love for us does not.”
“God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.”
“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.”
“God loves us NOT because we’re lovable, because He is love. Not because He needs to receive, because He delights to give.”
“The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.”
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d be either a lunatic on a level with a man who says he’s a poached egg or else he’d be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”
“We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved; we are rebels who must lay down our arms.”
1 All of these quotes are from the following website: TOP 25 QUOTES BY C. S. LEWIS (of 2057) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)