# “To love at all is to be vulnerable” by C.S. Lewis

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2026/09/10/to-love-at-all-is-to-be-vulnerable-by-c-s-lewis/
- Published: 2026-09-10T06:00:00-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong
an appeal to my nature as ‘Careful! This might lead you to suffering.’

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that 
appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ.

If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm 
my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether
there is anything in me that pleases Him less…

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If
you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, 
not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements;
lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be
broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers
and perturbations of love is Hell.”

–C.S. Lewis, _[**The Four Loves**](https://amzn.to/46kgquK)_ (New York: Harcourt,
1960/2017), 154-156.

[⌊The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis⌉⌊The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis⌉[

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