Great Divorce Quotes

• No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.

  C. S. Lewis

  Joy, Missing, Soul

  C. S. Lewis (1984). “The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis”, p.142, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• I gave in, and admitted that God was God.

  C. S. Lewis

  God, Atheist, Literature

  "Unseen CS Lewis letter defines his notion of joy" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. December 9, 2014.

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.

  C. S. Lewis

  Self, Two, People

  "The Problem of Pain". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1940.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Religion, Looks

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.119, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

  C. S. Lewis

  Strong, Sex, Children

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Weight of Glory”, p.26, Harper Collins

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• "I wish I had never been born," she said.
  "What are we born for?"
  "For infinite happiness," said the Spirit.
  "You can step out into it at any moment..."

  C. S. Lewis

  Wish, Steps, Spirit

  "The Great Divorce". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1945.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Heaven, Remains

  16 Copy quote

• I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell; and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.

  C. S. Lewis

  Thinking, Heaven, Earth

  C. S. Lewis (1984). “The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• This moment contains all moments.

  C. S. Lewis

  Moments

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it, or else, for ever and ever, the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.

  C. S. Lewis

  Joy, Able, Misery

  C. S. Lewis (1984). “The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis”, p.141, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporary suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Dream, Religious

  9 Copy quote

• You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Religious, God Love

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.190, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• No people find each other more absurd than lovers

  C. S. Lewis

  People, Lovers, Absurd

  16 Copy quote

• No, I don’t wish I knew Heaven was like the picture in my Great Divorce, because, if we knew that, we should know it was no better. The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.

  C. S. Lewis

  Divorce, Orange, Imagination

  8 Copy quote

• It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

  C. S. Lewis

  Strong, Desire, Mud Puddles

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Weight of Glory”, p.26, Harper Collins

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Inspiration, Errors

  C. S. Lewis (1984). “The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.

  C. S. Lewis

  Heaven, Able, Hell

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.178, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself.

  C. S. Lewis

  God, Men, Care

  "The Great Divorce". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1945.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?

  C. S. Lewis

  Reality, Feet, Shadow

  14 Copy quote

• And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good.

  C. S. Lewis

  Loneliness, Envy, Hatred

  8 Copy quote

• Hell is a state of mind -- ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind -- is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Heaven, Mind

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.185, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Religious, Self

  C. S. Lewis (1984). “The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis”, p.141, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves part of eternal reality.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reality, Makers, Eternal

  "The Great Divorce". Book by C. S. Lewis, 1945.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal sufferring, "No future bliss can make up for it" not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.

  C. S. Lewis

  Agony, Knowing, Heaven

  9 Copy quote

• We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.

  C. S. Lewis

  Sex, Ambition, Joy

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Weight of Glory”, p.26, Harper Collins

  20 Copy quote

  Show source