INTRODUCTION

This is the 2nd in a new series devoted to clarifying whether or not C.S. Lewis wrote something you’ve seen quoted in a book and/or shared on social media. Last time I noted I’d usually cover two quotations, and I’ll deliver on that promise today. However, instead of sharing only material since my 2018 book, The Misquotable C.S. Lewis, I decided to do that for just the first quote I explore each week. So, the second passage will always be one that is also found in my book (but more details are found in the book).

As noted last time, the new quote I examine originates from a question asked by members of my Confirming C.S. Lewis Quotations Facebook group. Also, if you want to see the online versions of quotations I’ve previously explored, then you can see a list at this central online location.

2.1 – “…Towards a Cliff…”

 “When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.”

I could try to be humorous and suggest that someone must have lost their mind when they falsely associated Lewis with this quotation. However, that would probably sound more critical than I’d intended it to be. As with many expressions misattributed to Lewis, this one makes good sense and a person can appreciate what it is saying. The concern is wrongly giving credit to Lewis when someone else wrote it. Unfortunately, it is not known who wrote it.

The earliest I tracked it down is to a book by Paul Marx from 1997, entitled Faithful for Life. However, Marx doesn’t give any reference to where Lewis allegedly wrote it. I searched my various collections of his writings and was unable to find it. Since that book, it has been shared by other authors and there are quite a few memes online with those words. Could someone just create a meme and list it as anonymous?

2.2 – “…Go Back and Change…”

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

If I had a dime for every view of my original article for this quote, then I’d have almost $3,000! If I had a dime for every time a meme was shared with the name of C.S. Lewis on it, then I’m sure I’d have at least ten times or a hundred times that. You get the picture, there are a lot of pictures with this quote and it being falsely attributed to Lewis. That’s why I wanted to spotlight it again.

Can you believe seven other people’s name has been associate with this quote?! But wait, there’s more…a football team also has credit for creating this expression. Find out more by checking out what I wrote back in 2017 about this saying, and/or read about it in my 2018 book, The Misquotable C.S. Lewis.