I have a soul free and entirely its own, and accustomed to guide itself after its own fashion; having hitherto never had either master or governor imposed upon me: I have walked as far as I would, and at the pace that best pleased myself; this is it that has rendered me unfit for the service of others, and has made me of no use to any one but myself.

Michel de Montaigne

The urgent project at the moment isn’t adding more information to the cultural file; it is understanding how meaning is produced.

 

Nathan Heller, The New Yorker (July 24, 2017)

I have sat at home in Bolt-court, all summer, thinking to write the Lives, and a great part of the time only thinking. Several of them, however, are done, and I still think to do the rest....I would have gone to Lichfield if I could have had time, and I might have had the time if I had been active; but I have missed much, and done little.

Samuel Johnson to James Boswell, August 21, 1780 is Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson