8 C. S. Lewis Quotes on Human nature

C. S. Lewis quotes on human nature

15. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.

21. There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.

29. Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal.... As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

50. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

51. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

69. God lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.

88. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

169. It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.