Sunday, May 3, 2009

C.S. Lewis Thoughts

With some new copies of some of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, I have recently been re-reading these books. There are some very good quotes in the writings reproduced there, that I share here for your consideration.
From The Weight of Glory:
"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than just philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point."
"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith."

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad you posted this quote - I actually read recently and it's such an interesting thought. I think in "unselfishness" we can still get caught up in "ME" where with real love and service it truly is about the other person which makes all the difference for the person, the relationship and what kind of person we are.

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