‘Knowledge liberates,’ Isaiah Berlin writes in his ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, ‘not by offering us more open possibilities amongst which we can make our choice, but by preserving us from the frustration of attempting the impossible.’

The true beauty of learning stuff, including apparently useless stuff, is that it takes us out of ourselves, reminds us that we are part of a far greater project,

The Renaissance increasingly adapted its course of study to produce a successful man of the world, though it did not leave him without philosophy and the graces, for it was still, by heritage, at least, an ideational world and was therefore near enough transcendental conceptions to perceive the dehumanizing effects of specialization.