Literary quotes - A.K.A. 'Quotes from famous writers that you may or may not have heard of but nonetheless have somewhat interesting things to say'

(A.K.A Dan's totally madly in love with both C.S. Lewis and Donald Miller - from a purely literary standpoint - and these are some of his favorite quotes of theirs)


C.S Lewis

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

“A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.”

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”

“The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

“A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.”

“Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

(As an English Lit major I love this particular one from Lewis)

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”

(And my all-time favorite quote from C.S Lewis...(drumroll).......)

“You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

Unattributed Annals
"The stone cannot know why the chisel cleaves it; the iron cannot know why the fire scorches it. When thy life is cleft and scorched, when death and despair leap at thee, beat not thy breast and curse thy evil fate, but thank the Lord for the trials that shape thee."

Ralph Waldo Emerson
"There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and disheveled desolation."

Antoine de Saint-Exupury
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly what is essentially invisible to the eye."

Anonymous
"E iti noa ana, na te aroha: Though my present be small, my love goes with it"

"May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back,
The sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand."

Samuel Butler

"Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them."

Mark Twain

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."

Donald Miller

“It was as if we were broken, I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, couldn’t love right, couldn’t feel good things for very long without screwing it all up. We were like gasoline engines running on diesel. I was just a kid so I couldn’t put words to it, but every kid feels it. (I am talking about the broken quality of life.) A kid will think there are monsters under his bed, or he will close himself I his room when his parents fight. From a very early age our souls are taught there is a comfort and a discomfort in the world, a good and bad if you will, a lovely and a frightening.”

“Even our beliefs have become trend statements. We don’t even believe things because we believe them anymore. We only believe things because they are cool things to believe. The problem with Christian belief—I mean real Christian belief, the belief that there is a God and a devil and a heaven and a hell—is that it is not a fashionable thing to believe.”

“We see those cigarette advertisements with the rugged cowboy riding around alone on a horse, and we think that is strength, when, really, it is like setting your soul down on a couch and not exercising it. The soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy.”

“I need wonder to explain what is going to happen to me, what is going to happen to us when this thing is done, when our shift is over and our kids’ kids are still on the earth listening to their crazy rap music. I need something mysterious to happen after I die. I need to be somewhere else after I die, somewhere with God, somewhere that wouldn’t make any sense if it were explained to me right now.”

“My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don’t really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don’t believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and there are some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care.”