The true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or gravely. For he will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.'... He will never commit the error of trying to munch whipped cream as if it were venison.
C.S. Lewis
Related Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of op... MARCEL PROUST Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts wit... JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it p... MARCEL PROUST A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he
reads as a task will do him little g... SAMUEL JOHNSON The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will no... CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him littl... SAMUEL JOHNSON Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes ... MARCEL PROUST The paradox of endurance sports is that an athlete can never work as hard as he wants, because if he... MALCOLM GLADWELL As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, i... ERICH FROMM As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, i... ERICH FROMM He was an avid reader, would read a book every two or three days. Then I started to notice the same ... GAIL BIRD At man's core there is a voice that wants him never to give in to fear. But if it is true that in ge... GEORGES BATAILLE He reads books of all stripes and persuasion, and he decided to read it. TRENT DUFFY Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 The truth is that every man is ... FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to... MAURICE BLANCHOT No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets... STANISłAW LEM Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work o... A.W. TOZER Relaxing, experiencing nature and laughing are what rejuvenate me and make me feel happy. I believe ... SUI HE Since raised blood pressure is the major cause of stroke, the blood pressure lowering effect of pota... FENG HE As a young child, I suffered from poor health. My parents encouraged me to swim, which really improv... SUI HE I like to find old things and I picked up that arrowhead in tears, that broken point ... LI HE These findings provide strong support for the recommendations encouraging the public to consume more... FENG HE The average fruit and vegetable intake in most developed countries is about three servings per day, ... FENG HE They are the Chinese heroes. I am happy for their performance and the result is not the most importa... HE ZHENLIANG This will be conducive to the development of Sino-US relations and China's relationships with the re... HE YAFEI The best way to resolve Sino-US trade imbalance is to expand bilateral trade cooperation. Restrictin... HE YAFEI They are sorry there is no more Soviet Union and they don't know how to act. HE YAFEI We are willing to import more U.S. goods. HE YAFEI Even when he's making dumplings with peasants, he speaks memorized words and sounds like a People's ... HE WEIFANG This is a critical moment. There is a lot of opposition to continuing the reforms as they are today. HE WEIFANG I unequivocally state the wish that the Communist Party should become two parties. HE WEIFANG The situation exists in almost every well-known Chinese university. HE WEIFANG The government really wants to slow down investment, but it can't control local governments who have... HE FAN The new managed floating currency regime is just an interim system. There is a chance of a further w... HE FAN Eventually, we found that the situation there was more serious than what we imagined. HE CHANGCHUI Part of our mission is to find out what kind of assistance is required. HE CHANGCHUI He doesn't know this now, but in the years to come he will, again and again, test Harold's claims of... HANYA YANAGIHARA He is a very positive captain; he is proactive as well as reactive. He is keen to read the game, to ... DAVID GOWER I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was signific... RALPH WALDO EMERSON 'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds... RALPH WALDO EMERSON There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive a... FLANNERY O'CONNOR And Michael likes to read a lot. People don't realize that about him but he reads a number of bo... DAVID GEST I thought the work would be very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man;... THOMAS JEFFERSON And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted LIN YUTANG He is as hard of a working lineman as I've been around. Offensive linemen are usually that way, but ... MIKE HOLMGREN The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own ... ALEXANDER POPE This is too much reality for a Friday. AS GOOD AS IT GETS We stopped to browse in the cases, and now that William - with his new glasses on his nose - could l... UMBERTO ECO When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other t... SALMAN RUSHDIE The guru, if he is gifted, reads the story as any bilingual person might. He does not translate-he u... SHELDON KOPP ...it is not really the difference the oppressor fears so much as the similarity. He fears he will d... CHERRIE MORAGO But the results are unbelievable. Everything has improved with my son. He writes with more ease; his... CHRISTINE MCCABE It was a place that is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his... PATRICK MCGOOHAN That the author is speaking only to us, that he is writing only for us, that no one on Earth has the... ADAM LANGER He's talented, but he approaches every drill as it if was his last, ... Add to that he is an unbelie... LORENZO ROMAR He suffered from indigestion now nearly every afternoon in his life, but as he lacked introspection ... H.G. WELLS The characteristics of this kind of reading are perhaps summed up in the word “orthodox,” which ... MORTIMER J. ADLER Man is what he reads. JOSEPH BRODSKY He may or may not have viewed himself as a fine artist, but he did photos for himself as well as com... LEE BRUMBAUGH Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he... FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY The fact is that if the writer's attention is on producing a work of art, a work that is good in its... FLANNERY O'CONNOR It is only the forcible propagation of conventional Christianity that makes the agnostic so bitter t... H. P. LOVECRAFT That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the mir... ERICH FROMM The liberal holds that he is true to the republic when he is true to himself. (It may not be as cozy... E.B. (ELWYN BROOKS) WHITE My father was famous for his photographic memory. He was in the OSS. They trained him to be captured... MARK HELPRIN HE WHO WRITES MORE THAN HE READS NEVER MAKES A GREAT WRITER. JOB LAZARUS OKELLO. That's SHIT! How do you remove it? You just put it inside the trash, easy as that. DEYTH BANGER A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one'... OSCAR WILDE A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is ea... J.C. RYLE This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver ha... BEN JONSON Have you ever noticed that Jesus is never recorded as taking a holiday? He retired for the purposes ... EVELYN UNDERHILL As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself ... C.S. LEWIS In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend. AESCHYLUS He prides himself on reading laws narrowly. He loves it. He thinks his job is to read laws as narrow... DAVID BOOKBINDER It is true that a fellow cannot ignore women - but he can think of them as he ought - as sisters, no... JIM ELLIOT He made a pit and digged it. He was cunning in his plans and industrious in his labors. He stooped t... CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON He's for you and wants to help you be the person He created you to be. CRAIG GROESCHEL He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that h... SAMUEL JOHNSON In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one si... GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ If a man proves too clearly and convincingly to himself...that a tiger is an optical illusion--well,... LORD (GEORGE GORDON) BYRON If a man proves too clearly and convincingly to
himself . . . that a tiger is an optical illusion--... LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON) That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the<... ERICH FROMM In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will... S. I. HAYAKAWA It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold t... OSCAR WILDE America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free... WOODROW WILSON America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free... WOODROW T. WILSON For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he w... ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he w... ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER A person, for example, reads in adulthood a book that is important for him, and it makes him say, "H... ITALO CALVINO Notwithstanding Steve Rogers' pure qualities as a footballer he will be remembered as much for the w... COLIN LOVE Notwithstanding Steve Rogers's pure qualities as a footballer he will be remembered as much for the ... COLIN LOVE When a man takes one step toward God, God takes more steps toward that man than there are sands in t... THE WORK OF THE CHARIOT Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Wri... C. S. LEWIS A man can be himself only so long as he is alone;
if he does not love solitude, he will not love fre... ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER There comes a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance... RALPH WALDO EMERSON As a pastor and as a dad, I want my son to know I tell the truth. He can read the book. He knows if ... TODD BURPO The Black and White Ball was a work of performance art. It was a work that was every bit as importan... DEBORAH DAVIS I don't know if it's hurting or not, but it's affecting him in the sense that he sure as heck didn't... BEN GOMEZ The machine demanded access codes. As he entered the first, a faint whispering sound startled him, c... CHRISTINA ENGELA To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will t... HENRY DAVID THOREAU
More C.S. Lewis
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LEWIS I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once. C.S. LEWIS Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably. C.S. LEWIS A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slight... C.S. LEWIS Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C.S. LEWIS Nos acercaremos a Dios no con el intento de evitar los sufrimientos inherentes a todos los amores, s... C.S. LEWIS Hence as the poet says: People in love cannot be moved by kindness, And opposition makes them feel l... C.S. LEWIS Not that we must always partake of [God's feast] solemnly. "God who made good laughter" forbid. It i... C.S. LEWIS The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the s... C.S. LEWIS Emerson has said, "When half-gods go, the gods arrive." That is a very doubtful maxim. Better say, "... C.S. LEWIS For most of us the true rivalry lies between the self and the human Other, not yet between the human... C.S. LEWIS But for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has bee... C.S. LEWIS I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this sort of patriotism, "But, sir, aren'... C.S. LEWIS Of all arguments against love, none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might l... C.S. LEWIS The loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even re... C.S. LEWIS You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher, or the Christian by staring in his eyes as... C.S. LEWIS Just as there are none good but God, and nothing good but goodness, so there are no loves but love i... C.S. LEWIS What I have called Appreciative love is no basic element in Affection. It usually needs absence or b... C.S. 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As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physi... C.S. LEWIS El amor empieza a ser un demonio desde el momento en que comienza a ser un dios. C.S. LEWIS Mathematics effectively began when a few Greek friends got together to talk about numbers and lines ... C.S. LEWIS We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His b... C.S. LEWIS Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experien... C.S. LEWIS A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one... C.S. LEWIS What does seem to me poisonous, what breeds a type of patriotism that is pernicious if it lasts but ... C.S. LEWIS Amar é, sempre, ser vulnerável. Para que nunca se sofra com isso, aconselha-se não se amar algo, ... C.S. LEWIS Nothing in Man is either worse or better for being shared with the beasts. C.S. LEWIS Even if the two lovers are mature and experienced people who know that broken hearts heal in the end... C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need... C.S. LEWIS Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping ... C.S. LEWIS When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has ... C.S. LEWIS It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fru... C.S. LEWIS Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. C.S. LEWIS While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwh... C.S. LEWIS Very few modern people think Friendship a love of comparable value or even a love at all. C.S. LEWIS It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious fr... C.S. LEWIS We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. C.S. LEWIS The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It w... C.S. LEWIS We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he "wants a... C.S. LEWIS Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude o... C.S. LEWIS Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed; to produce it in public ... C.S. LEWIS But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies ha... C.S. LEWIS In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself ... C.S. LEWIS Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for Go... C.S. LEWIS All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. C.S. LEWIS For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes ... C.S. LEWIS Those who cannot conceive of Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration ... C.S. LEWIS In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which ... C.S. LEWIS The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT ... C.S. LEWIS We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. They they become ... C.S. LEWIS Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appre... C.S. LEWIS We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for m... C.S. LEWIS A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. ... C.S. LEWIS [To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense i... C.S. LEWIS It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted crea... C.S. LEWIS I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you wan... C.S. LEWIS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but becaus... C.S. LEWIS God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love ... C.S. LEWIS We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sa... C.S. LEWIS Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be ... C.S. LEWIS Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll h... C.S. LEWIS If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as... C.S. LEWIS Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make ev... C.S. LEWIS The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where th... C.S. LEWIS There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will ... C.S. LEWIS Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden ... C.S. LEWIS There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those t... C.S. LEWIS I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as... C.S. LEWIS You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know ... C.S. LEWIS I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looki... C.S. LEWIS Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither. C.S. LEWIS There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civil... C.S. LEWIS The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea... C.S. LEWIS At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or ... C.S. LEWIS As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may thin... C.S. LEWIS Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our nat... C.S. LEWIS Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. C.S. LEWIS In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give. C.S. LEWIS Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?-Or at least, "Do you care about the s... C.S. LEWIS Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist... C.S. LEWIS People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often. C.S. LEWIS Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of ... C.S. LEWIS The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but t... C.S. LEWIS I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no sh... C.S. LEWIS He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no... C.S. LEWIS I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ... C.S. LEWIS A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun... C.S. LEWIS We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the b... C.S. LEWIS To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C.S. LEWIS The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good be... C.S. LEWIS If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explana... C.S. LEWIS Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if y... C.S. LEWIS You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. C.S. LEWIS When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, ... C.S. LEWIS In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates o... C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one ... C.S. LEWIS Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no ... C.S. LEWIS Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. C.S. LEWIS The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. C.S. LEWIS I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up o... C.S. LEWIS There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he... C.S. LEWIS A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking d... C.S. LEWIS They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you. Since but one voice is heard, i... C.S. LEWIS Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences,... C.S. LEWIS Friendship, then, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is ... C.S. LEWIS The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I wa... C.S. LEWIS Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, ... C.S. LEWIS Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to av... C.S. LEWIS We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and... C.S. LEWIS Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike t... C.S. LEWIS No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C.S. LEWIS And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, am... C.S. LEWIS You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. C.S. LEWIS Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon hi... C.S. LEWIS I desired dragons with a profound desire. C.S. LEWIS What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on wh... C.S. LEWIS Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole w... C.S. LEWIS You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of... C.S. LEWIS But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do ... C.S. LEWIS You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect th... C.S. LEWIS Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Ind... C.S. LEWIS People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot ... C.S. LEWIS The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not. C.S. LEWIS We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shov... C.S. LEWIS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but becaus... C.S. LEWIS In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A y... C.S. LEWIS Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies t... C.S. LEWIS Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. C.S. LEWIS I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give... C.S. LEWIS Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he... C.S. LEWIS You are told to love your neighbour as yourself. How do you love yourself? When I look into my own m... C.S. LEWIS We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, Blessed are they that... C.S. LEWIS If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explan... C.S. LEWIS All joy emphasises our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are... C.S. LEWIS A faith in culture is as bad as a faith in religion; both expressions imply a turning away from thos... C.S. LEWIS Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods. C.S. LEWIS What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong tu... C.S. LEWIS If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precis... C.S. LEWIS Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead ... C.S. LEWIS Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither. C.S. LEWIS “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we ... C.S. LEWIS To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possib... C.S. LEWIS If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of t... C.S. LEWIS Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, b... C.S. LEWIS I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of Admin. The gre... C.S. LEWIS The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epic... C.S. LEWIS Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense ... C.S. LEWIS The thing is to rely on God. The time will come when you will regard all this misery as a small pric... C.S. LEWIS