C. S. Lewis Quotes About Temptation

• A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.

  C. S. Lewis

  Motivational, Strong, Lying

• Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

  C. S. Lewis

  Mistake, Sleep, Tyrants

  "A Reply to Professor Haldane (1946)". "Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1966.

• We must learn by experience to avoid either trains of thought or social situations which for us (not necessarily for everyone) lead to temptations. Like motoring-don't wait till the last moment before you put on the brakes but put them on, gently and quietly, while the danger is still a good way off.

  C. S. Lewis

  Train Of Thought, Waiting, Temptation

• No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

  C. S. Lewis

  Happiness, Strong, Men

• I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptation. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc., don't get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time...The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give up.

  C. S. Lewis

  Happiness, Giving Up, Fall

• Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. ... We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.

  C. S. Lewis

  Strong, Mean, Fighting

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.94, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• After an error you need not only to remove the causes but also to correct the error itself: after a sin you must not only, if possible, remove the temptation, you must also go back and repent the sin itself. In each case an 'undoing' is required.

  C. S. Lewis

  Errors, Temptation, Needs

• Yes, pride is a perpetual nagging temptation. Keep on knocking it on the head, but don't be too worried about it. As long as one knows one is proud, one is safe from the worst form of pride.

  C. S. Lewis

  Pride, Long, Temptation

• Some have paid me an undeserved compliment by supposing that my Letters were the ripe fruit of many years' study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how temptation works.

  C. S. Lewis

  Years, Supposing That, Temptation

  C. S. Lewis (2013). “The Screwtape Letters: Annotated Edition”, p.9, Harper Collins

• I am suffering incessant temptations to uncharitable thoughts at present; one of those black moods in which nearly all one's friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there should be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil.

  C. S. Lewis

  Selfish, Thinking, Evil

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963”, p.6, Harper Collins

• The higher the stakes, the greater the temptation to lose your temper.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Temptation, Stakes

  C. S. Lewis (1964). “Reflections on the Psalms”, p.37, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• What can you ever really know of other people's souls — of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.

  C. S. Lewis

  Struggle, Fate, Opportunity

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

• Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers.

  C. S. Lewis

  Temptation, Looks, Facts

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works”, p.39, Harper Collins

• This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea, and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal.

  C. S. Lewis

  Sea, Temptation, Swim

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works”, p.39, Harper Collins

• We must get over wanting to be needed-this is the hardest of all temptations to resist

  C. S. Lewis

  Temptation, Hardest, Needed

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