11 C. S. Lewis Quotes on Choice

C. S. Lewis quotes on choice

27. There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'

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

37. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.

38. There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done.'

39. 'I wish I had never been born,' she said. 'What are we born for?' 'For infinite happiness,' said the Spirit. 'You can step out into it at any moment...'

40. 'But what of the poor Ghosts who never get into the omnibus at all?' ' Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell choose it. ... No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock, it is opened.'

42. 'Milton was right:' The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words 'Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.' There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery:

45. 'Ye can know nothing of the end of all things, or nothing expressible in those terms. It may be, as the Lord said to the Lady Julian, that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. But it's ill talking of such questions.' 'Because they are too terrible, Sir?' 'No. Because all answers deceive. If ye put the question from within Time and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it. But if ye are trying to leap on into Eternity, if ye are trying to see the final state of all things as it will be (for so ye must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the Real, then ye ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very lens through which ye see - small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope - something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have chosen and didn't is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it's truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic's vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom.'

57. Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it.

93. Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had. (ch. 4)

101. All get what they want; they do not always like it. (ch. 14)