The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis
First published 1942 · English · 160 pages
- Novels
- Satire and humour
- Religion and spirituality
This satirical epistolary work is a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior devil, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior tempter. Wormwood has been given charge of an ordinary young man in wartime England, and Screwtape offers advice on how to lead him away from faith and goodness. By seeing things from the devils' side, Lewis shows common human weaknesses such as vanity, distraction, self-deception and small cruelties. The book is witty, sharp and unsettling. It is a popular and original way of examining conscience and everyday moral choices.
Quotes
The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground.
Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.