A Quote by C. S. Lewis
When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?
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Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?
Whence came I, whither go I? Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears. Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity – the One of Parmenides – of which we all somehow form part, to which we belong. The most popular name for it in our time is God – with a capital ‘G’. Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.
I am for relying for internal defense on our militia solely till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have experienced; and not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens and sink us under them.
There's only one why. You only have one why, and your why is fully formed by the time you're 17, 18 or 19years old, maybe even earlier. The rest of your life are simply opportunities to either live in or out of balance and the career choices we make and the decisions we make in our lives either put us in balance with our why, which makes us happy, fulfilled and inspired. Or it puts us out of our why, which makes us frustrated, stressed out and sometimes we fail.
There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the foolish face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.
These are very unskillful comparisons to represent so precious a thing, but I am not clever enough to think out any more: the real truth is that joy makes the soul so forgetful of itself, and of everything, that it is conscious of nothing, and able to speak of nothing, save of that which proceeds from its joy... Let us join with this soul, my daughters all. Why should we want to be more sensible than she? What can give us greater pleasure than to do as she does? And may all the creatures join with us for ever and ever. Amen, amen, amen.
Metaphysicians have been learning their lessons for the last four thousand years, and it is high time that they should now begin to teach us something. Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant?
Let us ban together to invent all the miracles and resurrection appearances which we never saw and le us carry the sham even to death! Why not die for nothing? Why dislike torture and whipping inflicted for no good reason? Let us go out to all nations and overthrow their institutions and denounce their gods! And even if we don't convince anybody, at least we'll have the satisfaction of drawing down on ourselves the punishment for out own deceit.
Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives.
Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle taught us that money should be durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, and value in itself. It should be durable, which is why wheat isn't money; divisible which is why works of art are not money; consistent which is why real estate isn't money; convenient, which is why lead isn't money; value in itself, which is why paper shouldn't be money. Gold answers to all these criteria.
There are few of us but who have been touched somehow by death. Some may not have been touched closely by it nor yet have kept vigil with it, but somewhere along our lives, most of us are sorely bereft of someone near and deeply cherished - and all of us will some day meet it face to face.
For us, time travel is synonymous for the belief in all the things that are not seen, and also for the most outlandish claim that you could possibly make. To say that you're a time traveler is weirder than saying you're an alien. It's really strange to sit down in a basement and be face-to-face with someone who claims to be a real time traveler. So, for us, it was about the nuts and bolts of what it would be like, if you were face-to-face with someone who claimed to be from the future.
For just as some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without the cross, they also want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction.
Why should we defend ourselves when we are misunderstood and misjudged? Let us leave that aside. Let us not say anything. It is so sweet to let others judge us in any way they like. O blessed silence, which gives so much peace to the soul!
why can't we love the right people? what is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? we are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs.
Now and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled. It is a woman's face usually; often a face which has trace of great sorrow all over it, till the smile breaks. Such a smile transfigures: such a smile, if the artful but knew it, is the greatest weapon a face can have.
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