Lewis, Tolkien, and School

Bah humbug. The Christmas season was delayed me from posting. So...until I get back in the swing of a schedule, here are some quotes from two of my favorite authors, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

LEWIS:
Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

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.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

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.

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.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

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

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

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



TOLKIEN
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

I am told that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.

It's the job that's never started takes longest to finish.

I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?

Fair speech may hide a foul heart.

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

"What has it got to do with the story? Where is this place? Why emus? And what is the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?" ~On a cover painting for The Hobbit that depicted a hill, two emus, and a Christmas tree.

"I begin to feel that I am shut up in a madhouse." ~On hearing that the artist of the aforementioned painting had not read The Hobbit

"Charge 'em and they scatter!" ~On driving a car among other vehicles


Hope you enjoyed some of these!!

I start school tomorrow. I'm still going part time at home, part time at the college I was at last semester. This semester I'm taking 8 credits at college. A five credit Calculus 1 course and a 3 credit English Composition Course...woohoo. Calc 1 is 4 days a week, 75 minutes/lecture period. Ick.