A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
C. S. LewisRead
Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become a child again, even now... You have gone wrong. Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of curiosity and the pursuit of truth, urging us to return to a childlike state of inquiry.
C. S. Lewis highlights the inherent curiosity found in childhood, a time when individuals are naturally driven to seek answers and understand the world around them. He suggests that as we grow older, we often lose this thirst for knowledge and truth, becoming complacent in our understanding. The quote urges us to rekindle that childlike wonder and relentless quest for truth, emphasizing that just as our thirst necessitates water, our desire for knowledge demands a pursuit of truth.
Themes
CuriosityTruthInquiryChildhoodKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
This quote is perfect for a motivational talk about rekindling curiosity in learning environments.
More from C. S. Lewis
All quotes →I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it was condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it.
C. S. LewisRead
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
C. S. LewisRead
Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
C. S. LewisRead
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
C. S. LewisRead
The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred
C. S. LewisRead
Similar quotes
The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.
Israel ZangwillRead
The Buddha compared anger with picking up hot coals with one's bare hands and trying to throw them at the person with whom one is angry. Who gets burned first? The one who is angry of course.
Ayya KhemaRead
You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
There was once a fiddler who played so beauitully that everybody danced. A deaf man who could not hear the music considered them all insane. Those who are with Jesus in suffering hear this music to which other men are deaf. They dance and do not care if they are considered insane.
Richard WurmbrandRead
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been.
Chief SeattleRead
A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead