C.S. Lewis

1898–1963 · Oxford & Cambridge scholar, author of Mere Christianity

Clive Staples Lewis was a British literary scholar and Christian apologist, best known for Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia. In the Mere Christianity chapter “The Great Sin,” he described genuine humility as self-forgetfulness — the humble man “will not be thinking about himself at all.” That idea is the seed later writers compressed into the popular antithesis, which is why his name keeps getting attached to words he never actually wrote.

Traced to source

4 quotes we’ve traced to C.S. Lewis

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words”

Disputed

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

Disputed

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less”

Disputed

“Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions”

Disputed

Not actually C.S. Lewis

Often misattributed to C.S. Lewis

Famous lines widely pinned on C.S. Lewis that we’ve traced to someone else.

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words”

actually Unknown

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work”

actually Dr. John Trainer

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

actually Unknown — an anonymous modern aphorism

“Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn”

actually William Nicholson

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny”

actually Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less”

actually Rick Howard & Jamie Lash

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching”

actually Charles Marshall

“Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions”

Unknown — credited to C.S. Lewis, who did not write it

“You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream”

actually Les Brown

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

actually James R. Sherman

“You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body”

actually George MacDonald

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