What is sensible and what feels desirable are frequently not the same thing – and intelligence means to value the desirable more than the desirable. In life, we often face an inner tug of war; where one thing is sensible and the other desirable. To be impulsive means to choose the desirable at the cost of the sensible: but intelligence means to not give in to our impulses, but to recognize how; what is sensible is actually more valuable than what feels desirable – and to therefore prioritize the sensible over the desirable.

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18.38: That happiness which is derived from contact of the senses with their objects and which appears like nectar at first but poison at the end is said to be of the nature of passion.