Quote of the Day

I think the final (and most overlooked) lesson from Montaigne is that self-study is important, but utterly worthless without tangible results to show for it. Out of Montaigne’s retirement from public life came not only a better understanding of himself, but nearly a thousand pages of it in writing that he could refer back to whenever he needed it. This is why I made keeping a commonplace book a main point of the article. Taking a long walk every now and then might be calming, but cumulatively, what is it building towards? Ourselves is an occupation, not a casual commitment. We must work at it, create insight and wisdom from it and then in turn plow that capital back into more to work at. In other words, philosophy is not just spending a lot of time inside your own head but articulating what you find there, fleshing it out and turning it into something. This is what Montaigne was and continues to be peerless at.

- Ryan Holiday, An Introduction to Montaigne