Quotes

[John]

Share your favorite quotes here.

[Jill]

author's intro: "language that will engage, but not enrage, the reader"

"Our duty is not to cherish our own position, but to discover the true one."
"There is a world of difference between an argument and a quarrel."

"I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it. His humour was of the kind which I like best--not 'jokes' imbedded in the page like currants in a cake still less (what I cannot endure), a general tone of flippancy and jocularity, but the humour which is not in any way separable from the argument."

"The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection."

[John]

Jill wrote: ""The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.""

I loved that thought, though I think it doesn't make doctrines less important, but rather perhaps even more important. They are the approximations by which we understand Truth. They need to be as close to Truth as our limited human understanding permits.

[Manuel]

John wrote: "Jill wrote: ""The 'doctrines' we get out of the true myth are of course less true..."

I loved that thought, though I think it doesn't make doctrines less important, but rather perhaps even more important. They are the approximations by which we understand Truth. They need to be as close to Truth as our limited human understanding permits.
"

Yes, I thought the same when I read this quote.

[Jill]

"Dilution and delusion are twin sisters of deception." (ch. 9)

[Manuel]

From chapter 10:

“Of course I pray for the dead,” he states categorically, describing his prayers for deceased friends as “spontaneous.” He hardly knew how the rest of his prayers would survive “if those for the dead were forbidden.” “At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him?” At this juncture, considering Lewis’s injunction against the veneration of the saints, it is tempting to ask why God would make those that He loves best unmentionable to Him!

Pearce has a point here. Tolkien tells that once, speaking with Lewis, he mentioned his own devotion to St. John (his namesake saint) and Lewis answered sharply that he would never accept devotion and veneration to human beings (dulia).

[Jill]

"Historically, I think, many more people have abandoned their Christian faith because they found themselves in a milieu which tacitly assumed that supernatural religion is silly and irrelevant, than were convinced by any brilliant exposition of atheism or devastating refutation of the Christian claims."

[John]

Jill wrote: ""Historically, I think, many more people have abandoned their Christian faith because they found themselves in a milieu which tacitly assumed that supernatural religion is silly and irrelevant, tha..."

I think this is exactly right. But those are the people who are most subject to what Lewis might have called a lack of care in reading material.

[John]

From Chapter 4, Meeting Mother Kirk:
"It was not a question of learning, but of unlearning. One did not learn humility; one gained humility by abandoning pride."

So one should not really be surprised that if one prays for humility, God provides humiliation, as a means by which one can lose one's pride. Blessed be the name of the Lord.