“ The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what other people say about it, is by that very fact fore-armed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the "best" people, the "right" food, the "important" books. ”
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942). copy citation
Author | C. S. Lewis |
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Source | The Screwtape Letters |
Topic | food books |
Date | 1942 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | |
Weblink | https://www.truechristianity.info/en/the_screwtape_letters.php |
Context
“I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for county cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such things, I grant you, have nothing of virtue them; but there is a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness about them which I distrust. The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what other people say about it, is by that very fact fore-armed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the "best" people, the "right" food, the "important" books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions.
It remains to consider how we can retrieve this disaster. The great thing is to prevent his doing anything.”
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