Tristan Silva II’s Reviews > The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods > Status Update

“The human soul is rich: two seeds can be planted side by side without harming each other.”

“…let the stars speak to you of measureless duration; let the pebbles on your path be to you the residue of the formation of the earth; let the sight of a family make you think of past generations; and let the least contact with your fellows throw light on the highest conception of man.”

Still going strong. It’s a very hopeful book. While explaining that the intellectual life commits one to many daunting sacrifices, Sertillanges’s writing is beautiful, and makes the ideal conditions for a life of study sound like heaven.

Really great. Fourth section of the second chapter about the intellectual virtues is about bodily health. I really love that 106 years ago, “go touch grass” was needed advice. “Live as much as possible in the open air.”

I started this as a pdf—it’s already so good, I had to buy it & am currently waiting on the physical copy to come in so I can read it properly. “Is it not a sacrilege to play with the questions that dominate life & death, with mysterious nature, with God—to achieve some literary or philosophical celebrity at the expense of the true & independently of the true?” Banger.