Another Clive Staples Lewis post? There's a lot more where that came from.
This book gathers 4 of his books. They are: Surprised by Joy, Reflections on the Psalms, The Four Loves, and The Business of Heaven. I read Surprised by Joy probably about 9 years ago. I then read the other three about 7 years ago. It's good stuff, and it really, honestly, truly doesn't get better than C.S. Lewis when it comes to Christian writing.
I remember not loving Surprised by Joy (his biography which focuses on his conversion from atheism to Christianity) for some reason, which was a surprise indeed. But looking over it again, I'm not sure what's not to like. I probably fell victim to the trap of unrealistically high expectations after having somewhat recently read Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. I should read it again. Maybe some day. The others were good too as far as I can remember. The Business of Heaven is probably the best for classic C.S. Lewis quotes because it is actually various writings of his presented in small samplings for each day of the year, calendar-quote style. So there's lots of good ones from lots of different sources.
As per usual, many good quotes. I'll try not to go overboard.
From Surprised by Joy:
"I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world."
"Where courage is not, no other virtue can survive except by accident."
"What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings: but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it."
From Reflections on the Psalms:
"Where we find a difficulty we may always expect that a discovery awaits us." (I've actually kept this quote written on a piece of paper and carried it in my scripture case ever since reading this quote. I think it's great).
"Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst."
"I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful and so forth. Not because we are 'too good' for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations."
From The Four Loves:
"A man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God."
"When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it."
From The Business of Heaven:
"Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.... That is why daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"
"We should, I believe, distrust states of mind which turn our attention upon ourselves. Even at our sins we should look no longer than is necessary to know and to repent them; and our virtues or progress (if any) are certainly a dangerous object of contemplation. When the sun is vertically above a man he casts no shadow: similarly when we have come to the Divine meridian our spiritual shadow (that is, our consciousness of self) will vanish. One will thus in a sense be almost nothing: a room to be filled by God and our blessed fellow creatures, who in their turn are rooms we help to fill."
"Wherever the will conferred by the Creator is thus perfectly offered back in delighted and delighting obedience by the creature, there, most undoubtedly, is Heaven, and there the Holy Ghost proceeds."
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