C. S. Lewis Quotes About Failing

• When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Christian, World

  C.S. Lewis (1960). “Mere Christianity”

• Now we cannot...discover our failure to keep God's law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going tobring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, "You must do this. I can't.

  C. S. Lewis

  Home, Law, Ideas

• If devils exist, their first aim is to give you an anesthetic -- to put you off your guard. Only if that fails, do you become aware of them.

  C. S. Lewis

  Giving, Devil, Firsts

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.46, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

• When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Talking, Giving

  C.S. Lewis (1960). “Mere Christianity”

• No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. but they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Heart, Judgement, Emotion

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

• You do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but you have lost love because you never attempted obedience.

  C. S. Lewis

  Lost Love, Love Is, Lack Of Love

• Why should your majesty think it? My own plans are made. While I may, I sail East in Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I row East in my coracle. When that sinks, shall I paddle East with my four paws. Then, when I can swim no longer, if I have not yet reached Aslan's Country, there shall I sink with my nose to the sunrise... and Peepiceek will be head of Talking Mice in Narnia

  C. S. Lewis

  Country, Thinking, Talking

• This is where men, even the trustiest, fail us. Their heart is never so wholly given to any matter but that some trifle of a meal, or a drink, or a sleep, or a joke, or a girl, may come in between them and it, and then (even if you are a queen) you'll get no more good out of them until they've had their way.

  C. S. Lewis

  Girl, Queens, Heart

• Surely arrested development consists not in refusing to lose old things but in failing to add new things.

  C. S. Lewis

  Old Things, Add, Development

  C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God.

  C. S. Lewis

  Giving, Needs, May

• Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let the villans be soundly killed at the end of the book. I think it is possible that by confining your child to the blameless stories of life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable.

  C. S. Lewis

  Kings, Children, Book

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