Sign in with Facebook
Colleen's Reviews > The Four Loves
The Four Loves
by C.S. Lewis
by C.S. Lewis
Colleen's review
bookshelves: 20th-century, non-fiction, owned-books, religion-faith, classic
Jul 03, 2014
bookshelves: 20th-century, non-fiction, owned-books, religion-faith, classic
Read from September 19 to October 24, 2014
The Four Loves is based on the four Greek words for love: agápe, éros, philía, and storgē. Lewis defines each of these types of love and how they affect our lives. It was a short, lovely read. It was at times a little highbrow, but remember that it was written in the 40's by a Cambridge professor. Still Lewis has a wonderful way with words, and some of the reflections and quotes were quiet resonant. Such as this one:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
I wish parts of it had flowed a little smoother, however I did enjoy it. There were also tiny bits of snark that keep it from being too stuffy. The segment on friendship was my favorite.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
I wish parts of it had flowed a little smoother, however I did enjoy it. There were also tiny bits of snark that keep it from being too stuffy. The segment on friendship was my favorite.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
The Four Loves.
Sign In »
Quotes Colleen Liked
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Reading Progress
| 07/03/2014 | marked as: | to-read | ||
| 09/19/2014 | marked as: | currently-reading | 2 comments | |
| 10/24/2014 | marked as: | read | ||
Comments (showing 1-5 of 5) (5 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Katie
(new)
Oct 05, 2014 10:54AM
I just read the synopsis again, and this sounds great.
reply
|
flag
*
It's very interesting. Unfortunately, it got bumped down the list because my other books are library books. Hopefully I will finish it soon though!
Oh, the choices we must make. You didn't go to that book festival yesterday, did you? I was called into work. So sad...
No, i didn't. I forgot my niece's birthday party was the same day. Trying to convince myself it was a good thing to miss the book fair because I'm out of space of my bookshelves, but I remain unconvinced.
