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
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Prayer is a personal act that transforms the one who prays, rather than affecting God directly.
In this quote, C. S. Lewis expresses the intrinsic nature of prayer as an expression of human need and vulnerability. Rather than portraying prayer as a means to influence the divine, he emphasizes that it serves to deepen and change the individual who engages in it, highlighting the transformative power of surrender and reflection in the act of praying.
Themes
PrayerTransformationHumilityFaithHelplessness
In practice
Example use cases
In a church service where the theme is reliance on faith during tough times.
More from C. S. Lewis
All quotes βI 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
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
The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you ever heard it? Can you remember?
C. S. LewisRead
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If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.
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His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape form her image.
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If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy.
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