The Screwtape Letters — Vocabulary
C. S. Lewis
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The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it--all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.8 more

But I fear ... he knows that Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins which provoke it.8 more

Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offence is taken.4 more

The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are "Real" while the spiritual elements are "subjective"; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist.4 more

But even if He defeats your first attempt at misdirection, we have a subtler weapon.4 more

There is a subtle play of looks and tones and laughs by which a Mortal can imply that he is of the same party is those to whom he is speaking.4 more

we thus aggravate the female's chronic horror of growing old ... and render her less willing and less able to bear children.8 more

The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.6 more

The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns.†6 more

The real fun is working up hatred between ... [them] when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker's doctrine and Thomas Aquinas', in any form which would hold water for five minutes.7 more

He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" of "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary", "conventional" or "ruthless".†4 more

The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know.4 more

For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action.†4 more

Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them.†4 more

On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics.†4 more

I divide the causes of human laughter into Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy.†4 more

The real use of the infernal Venus is, no doubt, as prostitute or mistress.†4 more

Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it—why, then it is that the incalculable may occur.†3 more

Her jealousy, and alarm, and his increasing evasiveness or rudeness, will be invaluable for the aggravation of the domestic tension.3 more

We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples.†2 more