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.
C. S. LewisRead
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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that believing in objective values is essential for a fair system of rules and obedience that is not oppressive.
C. S. Lewis argues that for a set of rules to be legitimate and just, there must be an underlying belief in objective values. Without this belief, any system of rules may degenerate into tyranny, and obedience may resemble slavery, as the absence of objective morality can lead to arbitrary and oppressive systems of power.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophical debate about the foundations of morality.
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.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
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
The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you ever heard it? Can you remember?
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Earth has one angel less and heaven one more, since yesterday.
If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.
The most dangerous kind of man is not the one who spent his youth shoving others around. That kind of man gets lazy, and is often too content with his life to be truly dangerous. The man who spent his youth being shoved around, however β¦ When that man gets a little power and authority, he often uses it to become a tyrant on par with the worst warlords in history.
I realize now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves-before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
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