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The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.
C. S. Lewis
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Pursuing a single impulse without reflection can lead to danger and misguided choices.

C. S. Lewis warns against blindly following our impulses or desires without prudence or consideration of their consequences. He emphasizes the importance of reflection and balance in decision-making, suggesting that allowing any single impulse to dominate our actions can lead to negative outcomes and unwise paths.

Themes

ImpulseWisdomReflectionDecisionNature

In practice

Example use cases

During a seminar on decision-making, this quote serves as a warning against impulsive choices.

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A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
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I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it was condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it.
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Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
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Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
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I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
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The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred
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Quote by C. S. Lewis | QuoteProject