C. S. Lewis, a prolific writer and theologian, is renowned for his profound insights on love, life, and the human experience. His works, ranging from the enchanting world of Narnia to deep theological treatises, have touched the hearts and minds of millions. In this article, we explore some of the most inspiring C. S. Lewis quotes about love and life that continue to resonate with readers across generations.
C. S. Lewis Quotes About Love
Love is an important theme in many of C. S. Lewis's works. He not only talks about romantic love but also explores more deeply about love between humans and spiritual love.
“
Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.
C. S. Lewis
“
Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life.
C. S. Lewis
“
Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.
C. S. Lewis
“
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
“
Being in love first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.
C. S. Lewis
“
They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. it is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.
C. S. Lewis
“
Of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from ‘being in love’ — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.
C. S. Lewis
“
Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.
C. S. Lewis
“
And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,’ then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships?
C. S. Lewis
“
This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
C. S. Lewis
“
When they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours.
C. S. Lewis
“
No people find each other more absurd than lovers.
C. S. Lewis
“
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
“
It is indeed only love that makes the difference: all those very same principles which are evil in the world of selfishness and necessity are good in the world of love and understanding.
C. S. Lewis
“
If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.
C. S. Lewis
“
When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now
C. S. Lewis
“
Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.
C. S. Lewis
“
If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. But it's still worth it.
C. S. Lewis
“
Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.
C. S. Lewis
“
Love is unselfishly choosing for another's highest good.
C. S. Lewis
“
The love of knowledge is a kind of madness.
C. S. Lewis
“
When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis Quotes About Life
Life, with all its ups and downs and profound meaning, is a subject that C. S. Lewis discussed extensively. His reflections on life are often philosophical, encouraging personal growth and the search for true meaning.
“
The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.
C.S. Lewis
“
God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.
C.S. Lewis
“
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.
C.S. Lewis
“
There are no ordinary people. 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 splendors.
C.S. Lewis
“
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
C.S. Lewis
“
Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
C.S. Lewis
“
What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.
C.S. Lewis
“
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
C.S. Lewis
“
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis
“
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
C.S. Lewis
“
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
C.S. Lewis
“
We are what we believe we are.
C.S. Lewis
“
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?
C.S. Lewis
“
The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.
C.S. Lewis
“
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.
C.S. Lewis
“
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.
C.S. Lewis
“
Courage, dear heart.
C.S. Lewis
“
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
C.S. Lewis
“
We are mirrors whose brightness is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.
C.S. Lewis
“
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.' I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature… Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
C.S. Lewis
“
All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
C.S. Lewis
“
I once read the sentence ‘I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache and about lying awake.’ That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
C.S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis’s quotes about love and life continue to inspire and comfort readers worldwide. Let these quotes serve as a guiding light in your journey through love and life.
As Olivia Williams, a dedicated contributor at thetopquote.com, I bring a unique blend of passion and expertise to the art of quotation curation. My journey in journalism and creative writing has equipped me with the discerning eye necessary to select quotes that are not only thought-provoking but also deeply meaningful. I am committed to sharing wisdom that resonates with our readers, helping them find inspiration and insight in every phrase.
