Joseph Epstein, in his collection of essays titled Narcissus Leaves the Pool, writes:
"The cultivated not only know a great deal but, more important, they know what is significant--they know, not to put too fine a point on it, what is really worth knowing.
Part of being a cultivated person is knowing what to forget...The cultivated person is good at the act of extrapolation: at imagining the unknown on the evidence of the known. He has a strong historical sense, so that he tends to be less impressed by the crisis of the week that agitates the news media, which they in turn use to agitate the rest of us. From his historical sense, he knows that this caravan has passed before, and that another, not very different one will pass through next week and another the week after that."
"The allegiance to common sense implies an automatic diminution of zeal."
The above quotes from Joseph Epstein could not be more applicable to our time.
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