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2f20e55
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If ever they remembered their life in this world it was as one remembers a dream.
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C.S. Lewis |
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589a79f
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We need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.
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C.S. Lewis |
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066aa39
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First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done. I cannot now rem..
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C.S. Lewis |
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0688bf0
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We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
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work
inspiration
education
life
knowledge
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C.S. Lewis |
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e4454ef
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Don't you mind," said Puddleglum. "There are no accidents. Our guide is Aslan; and he was there when the giant king caused the letters to be cut, and he knew already all things that would come of them; including this."
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C.S. Lewis |
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da22e41
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His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix..
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philosophy
theodicy
theology
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C.S. Lewis |
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544a55c
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Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that.
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C.S. Lewis |
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56566cd
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Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an att..
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willpower
charity
consequences
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C.S. Lewis |
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822a41d
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The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.
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C.S. Lewis |
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acaf907
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It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
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C.S. Lewis |
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2c28cb0
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No natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.
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C.S. Lewis |
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19b06f2
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To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity.
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humanity
hell
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C.S. Lewis |
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e18ed53
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I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do enter your room, you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are commo..
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timing
waiting
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C.S. Lewis |
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1312971
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No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city.
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profound
inspirational
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C.S. Lewis |
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c61088a
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None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning--either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which mak..
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C.S. Lewis |
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a8d2fc9
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Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it."
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C.S. Lewis |
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0bf4b72
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A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. It was hardly a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
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narnia
genesis
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C.S. Lewis |
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9ed2b0e
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We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.
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C.S. Lewis |
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3b4d916
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Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.
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pain
suffering
nature
life
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C.S. Lewis |
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a71571d
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Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.
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C.S. Lewis |
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d97b208
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Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house.
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grief
loss
faith
death
stillbirth
grieving
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C.S. Lewis |
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29ce0ec
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This is the land of Narnia,' said the Faun, 'where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea.
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wardrobe
witch
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C.S. Lewis |
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3b792d3
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You have a traitor there, Aslan," said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he'd been through and after the talk he'd had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn't seem to matter what the Witch said."
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C.S. Lewis |
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24cf0b5
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Emeth speaking of Aslan, "Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek...And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog" --
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emeth
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C.S. Lewis |
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b8fbad4
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When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy..
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compassion
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C.S. Lewis |
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34d55ab
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But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.
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C.S. Lewis |
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f0d8f33
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I felt ashamed." "But of what? Psyche, they hadn't stripped you naked or anything?" "No, no, Maia. Ashamed of looking like a mortal -- of being a mortal." "But how could you help that?" "Don't you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can't help?"
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shame
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C.S. Lewis |
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77ff1fd
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The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
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C.S. Lewis |
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4f1e03b
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We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the "intolerable compliment." Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over th..
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pain
masterpiece
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C.S. Lewis |
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d50e576
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The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love", and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." We were made not primarily that we may love God (th..
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C.S. Lewis |
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4053a3c
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Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?
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righteousness
sovereignty
penitence
humility
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C.S. Lewis |
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a4775c4
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And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures were coming to and end; but that was not to be.
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C.S. Lewis |
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e258ecc
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I daren't come and drink," said Jill. Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion. Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer."I suppose I must go and look for another stream then." There is no other stream," said the Lion."
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C.S. Lewis |
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f9ac289
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For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.
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C.S. Lewis |
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47cc083
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this is a book about something
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fantasy
c-s-lewis
digory
magician-s-nephew
polly
narnia
christian
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C.S. Lewis |
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f2c47a4
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It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us.
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C.S. Lewis |
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b945d4e
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At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
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heaven
hope
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C.S. Lewis |
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22a1070
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Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.
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pride
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C.S. Lewis |
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c399272
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Wouldn't he know without being asked?' said Polly. 'I've no doubt he would,' said the Horse (still with his mouth full). 'But I've a sort of an idea he likes to be asked.
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C.S. Lewis |
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ad43058
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Music. A meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience.
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C.S. Lewis |
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c2a09d6
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Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons.
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C.S. Lewis |
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16bbc44
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When they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours.
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C.S. Lewis |
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dc89b25
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Do not by any means destroy yourself, for if you live you may yet have good fortune, but all the dead are dead like.
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C.S. Lewis |
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8550103
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I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call..
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C.S. Lewis |