C. S. Lewis Religion Quotations

He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Of course, I quiet agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable discomfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is one thing you cannot get looking for it. If you look for the truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth-only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and the in the end, despair.

I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?

We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.

There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.

There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.

Do not dare not to dare.

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.

The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words 'true' or 'false'.

Die before you die, there is no chance after.

But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.

The stamp of the Saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus.

It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.

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.

Adventures are never fun while you're having them.

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.

God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than He is of any other slacker.

A great many of those who 'debunk' traditional...values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process

When you argue against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.

To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

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.

You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.

Oh, Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!

I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.

It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.

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.

No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that 'In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth'.

There are no ordinary people.. it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.

Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.

To be religious is to have one's attention fixed on God and on one's neighbour in relation to God.

If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, 'I am.' To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him.

To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable in you.

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness.

Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best.

Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break provided they break together. If the voice within us does not say this it is not the voice of Eros.

He'll be coming and going" he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down--and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.

In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison-you do not know God at all.

Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed.

Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies--these over simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either.