Zitate von Clive Staples Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis
Geburtstag: 29. November 1898
Todesdatum: 24. November 1963
Andere Namen:C.S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis war ein irischer Schriftsteller und Literaturwissenschaftler. Er lehrte am Magdalen College der University of Oxford und hatte den Lehrstuhl für Englische Literatur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance an der University of Cambridge inne. Er ist vor allem im angloamerikanischen Raum bekannt für seine Kinderbuchserie Die Chroniken von Narnia.
Zitate Clive Staples Lewis
„Ein bloßer Mensch, der solche Dinge sagen würde, wie Jesus sie gesagt hat, wäre kein großer Morallehrer. […] Entweder war – und ist – dieser Mensch Gottes Sohn, oder er war ein Narr oder Schlimmeres. Wir können ihn als Geisteskranken einsperren, wir können ihn verachten oder als Dämon töten. Oder wir können ihm zu Füßen fallen und ihn Herr und Gott nennen. Aber wir können ihn nicht mit gönnerhafter Herablassung als einen großen Lehrer der Menschheit bezeichnen. Das war nie seine Absicht; diese Möglichkeit hat er uns nicht offengelassen.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Pardon, ich bin Christ. 18. Auflage. Brunnen Verlag, Basel 2006. ISBN 3-7655-3150-2 S. 56
„Ich glaube an Christus, so wie ich glaube, dass die Sonne aufgegangen ist, nicht nur, weil ich sie sehe, sondern weil ich durch sie alles andere sehen kann.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Ist Theologie Dichtung?, in: Das Gewicht der Herrlichkeit und andere Essays
„Wer alles durchschaut, sieht nichts mehr.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Die Abschaffung des Menschen, S.82
„You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
As quoted in Of This and Other Worlds (1982) by Walter Hooper, Preface, p. 9
„You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place.)... The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put in our minds. And this is a better bit of evidence than the other, because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.
Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
„I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes.
Hyoi, p. 76 <!-- 2003 edition -->
„Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside of the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.
Book II, Chapter 3, "The Shocking Alternative"
„Time is the very lens through which ye see — small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope — something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: "Ye can know nothing of the end of all things, or nothing expressible in those terms. It may be, as the Lord said to the Lady Julian, that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. But it's ill talking of such questions."
"Because they are too terrible, Sir?"
"No. Because all answers deceive. If ye put the question from within Time and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it. But if ye are trying to leap on into Eternity, if ye are trying to see the final state of all things as it will be (for so ye must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the Real, then ye ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very lens through which ye see — small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope — something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have chosen and didn't is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it's truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic's vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom."
Ch. 13
„Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics. Hierarchy within can alone preserve egalitarianism without. Romantic attacks on democracy will come again. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the more real, more concrete fields within. Let us wear equality; but let us undress every night.
„I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason.
„Thus up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword to the Smith. to the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: But perhaps I lack the gift. I see I've described her as being like a sword. That's true as far as it goes. But utterly inadequate by itself, and misleading. I ought to have said 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you explore.'
And then, of her, and every created thing I praise, I should say 'in some way, in its unique way, like Him who made it.'
Thus up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword to the Smith. to the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful.
„We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they.“
— Clive Staples Lewis
Context: Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics. Hierarchy within can alone preserve egalitarianism without. Romantic attacks on democracy will come again. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the more real, more concrete fields within. Let us wear equality; but let us undress every night.
