“The process of living seems to consist in coming to realise truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes. They cannot sound otherwise to those who have not had the relevant experience.” Letter to  Dom Bede Griffiths OSB (from Volume 2 on 5/8/1939)

“No doubt all history in the last resort must be held by Christians to be a story with a divine plot.” The Discarded Image  (Published on 5/7/1964)

“The Christian must wage endless war against the clamour of the ego as ego: but he loves and approves selves as such, though not their sins.” Two Ways with the Self  (Published in The Guardian on 5/3/1940)

“Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes” The Screwtape Letters #1  (first published in The Guardian on 5/2/1941)

“Yes— it is sometimes hard to obey St. Paul’s ‘Rejoice.’ We must try to take life moment by moment. The actual present is usually pretty tolerable, I think, if only we refrain from adding to its burden that of the past and the future.” Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne  (from Volume 3 on 5/4/1962)

“There are two kinds of self-hatred which look rather alike in their earlier stages, but of which one is wrong from the beginning and the other right to the end.” Two Ways with the Self  (Published in The Guardian on 5/3/1940)

“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.” The Magician’s Nephew  (Published on 5/2/1955

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us: we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” Letter to Father Peter Bide  (from Volume 3 on 4/29/1959)

“The demand for equality has two sources; one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest, of human emotions. The noble source is the desire for fair play. But the other source is the hatred of superiority.” Democratic Education  (Published in Time and Tide as “Notes on the Way” on 4/29/1944)

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” On Three Ways of Writing for Children  (Speech given on 4/29/1952)